Holiday Coro Singing Pumpkin

[dirknerkle]

Project update....

I cut four, 1" long sections of PVC and mounted them on the front of the pumpkin as standoffs. Now I can at least push the bulb side against a wall and the bulbs will be secure. (I love PVC!!!) (Not shown - I screwed a couple pipe brackets onto each vertical side of the big pumpkin frame. For mounting in the yard, I'll just drive a couple sections of rebar into the ground and slide it down over them.)

Here are the small pumpkins. These are actually plastic treat buckets I bought at Target for $1 each. But because they didn't have a top, I bought some plastic orange plates, cut the rims off and with a few dollops of silicone glue they fit perfectly on top. For pumpkin stumps, I cut a short 3/4" section of PVC that was painted green and glued it to the tops.

I used a fender washer and 1" sheetrock screw through the bottom and mounted them on two sections of lumber I'd painted black. This will make them easy to store and especially easy to set out. And they're not likely to blow around, either.

With my Dremel and a diamond saw I cut a V-shaped flap in the back/bottom of each for wiring access and placed a string of 20 mini-lights in each.

This completes this project for me... great fun. I wonder what life will be like when I grow up???

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[tlorek]

Absolutely awesome, and elegantly simple to boot!!!

This is definitely on my list for next year!

[erm213]

This completes this project for me... great fun. I wonder what life will be like when I grow up???

Looks great. Now why do you want to grow up? This is concerning.

Erik

[RobDude30]

Hey Dirk - how far apart are the lights around the perimeter. I am making some coro cutouts for Christmas and trying to figure out how far apart to drill the holes and still get a nice look.

[gdyrdave]

You are already growed up. Just your mind has to catch up...LOL

[dirknerkle]

Hey Dirk - how far apart are the lights around the perimeter. I am making some coro cutouts for Christmas and trying to figure out how far apart to drill the holes and still get a nice look.

I'd say they're slightly less than 3/4" apart, and it's the same distance whether it's an eye, part of the mouth, or whatever. In cases where lines overlap/intersect, they are closer than that, of course.

Having said that, I want to say that buying the piece from Holiday Coro made it so easy -- well worth the money, I feel. The board is opaque black so nothing shows through, the holes are already there for you, someone has already traced on the back of the board to show which sets of holes are for what, and you get three sequences (and MP3 files) along with it, ready to go -- the time that saved alone was worth the $$ to me! But on top of all that, the board comes folded and shipped inside -- what else -- MORE CORO! So you get not only the pumpkin, the sequences and music, but you get a 4' square piece of regular coro (white translucent) to boot that you can use later on for something else!

So you might consider buying one instead -- the holes are uniform and perfectly sized for mini-lights (or M5 LEDs), you get all the other stuff -- it's a steal at the price!

[dmoore]

Hey Dirk - how far apart are the lights around the perimeter. I am making some coro cutouts for Christmas and trying to figure out how far apart to drill the holes and still get a nice look.

Spacing is a tricky thing - for some areas you need to have them fairly tight, such as where you have lots of curves or jagged angles and you can space them out where the eye can "interpolate" between the lights such as long separate lines. Some places like on mouths, eyes you'll also need them close. I would *highly* recommend drawing out the vectors on transparency, then using another transparency laid over the vectors, layout the dots where you have bulbs so you can workout the spacing. You'll need these anyway when you do the projector. Ideally this is done in CAD where it's trivial to test many different spacings.

Be sure to flip your design when you trace it to the back side so it comes out correctly. Here is what you'd be looking for when you are done:

bulb-tracing.JPG

[ChiefWarrant]

Having said that, I want to say that buying the piece from Holiday Coro made it so easy -- well worth the money, I feel. The board is opaque black so nothing shows through, the holes are already there for you, someone has already traced on the back of the board to show which sets of holes are for what, and you get three sequences (and MP3 files) along with it, ready to go -- the time that saved alone was worth the $$ to me!

I am with Dirk on this one. I had been on the fence for a while on weather or not to buy the coro. The addition of the files put me over the edge, especially after building some coro's my 4th of July show.

[RobDude30]

Thanks guys for all of the input. Very helpful!

I do agree that purchasing pre-made would be much easier, but I am working on some cutouts of my own design. So, wish me luck on all of the hole drilling/punching.

Rob

[zztopmo]

Well again you have inspired me Dave. Made a trip to WalMart today and 6 for .97 each. Now to put it together. Where did you get the plates?

Rick