Holiday Coro Singing Pumpkin

[dirknerkle]

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

I purchased the plastic plates at a "party" store called Party America. Anyplace the has holiday decoration for parties and such likely has them for Halloween Parties and such.

[n8huntsman]

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:

Attachment 11435

This is exactly why I purchased my singing faces from Dave. I can tell how much work went into these and I just never would have had the time to get it done. Thanks Dave!

[Wayne J]

Hopefully, one day, I can be in a neighborhood I can do Halloween stuff like this.

Nice!

[Wayne J]

OK, so my daughter decided she wants a Halloween theme for her birthday (putting the pressure on... gezzz). I went ahead and ordered on of these also. I hope it goes together easy. Any tips before it arrives?

[dirknerkle]

If you ordered the big one, check the light requirements for it. The outline of the pumpkin (for example) requires 140 lights, which works out perfectly for two 70-ct orange. Figure out what you think would look best for different colors of facial parts. I made all the mouth parts red instead of orange (pumpkin lips, you know...) but I thought about just doing the whole thing in orange, too. You'll need 8 channels for the pumpkin itself, if you decide to use the 3 sequences that came with the purchase of the coro...

One tip that will be helpful is when you do the mouth, do the inside lights first and work your way out. If you do the outside first, it's harder to see the holes for the bulbs because of all the darned wires

[Wayne J]

Do I need to make the frame?

[dirknerkle]

You'll want to attach the coro to something. It will come folded in half, and it's not terribly strong in its native form -- it won't stand up on its own so attaching it to some kind of frame to hold it up will be necessary. Alternately, you could "hang" it from something I suppose and then you might get by without a full frame, but it'd likely blow around a lot if it's windy. They'll suggest in the directions to use 2x4s for the frame, and that's a pretty cheap way to go, but you could also do it with 1x4 or even 1x3. The holes are about 3/4" apart, so imagine all the extra wire that will be looped on one side after poking the lights through the holes. While you don't have to put a back on it, I chose to make it a little more heavy-duty and enclose the whole thing so it'll be nearly waterproof and very sturdy.

[mschell]

Darryl at ChristmasLightShow.com showed another mounting technique using PCV pipe at the edge of the coro for the 4x4 Reindeer. Now sure how you're going to mount it, but since I plan to hang it above my front door, the PVC seems like a less heavy option.

I have holiday coro's flag, and I did build a frame of 1x4 to mount it to. Be aware, these things get heavy with lots of lights on them!

[dmoore]

It's not too late to order the Singing Pumpkin from HolidayCoro for Halloween. We have them in stock and ready to ship - add some lights, your controller, 2x4's and some screws and you are ready to show! We've even added an additional song to make it six total songs (LOR format but can be converted to vixen or used with xLights out of the box.)

More info at: http://www.holidaycoro.com/HW-Characters.asp (item #17)

Thanks,
David
HolidayCoro

[Wildbill]

The extra coro that Dave uses to ship the pumpkin in makes a very nice and light back to the 2x4 frame.
And Dave everybody that stops to watch it, loves it!