Arches for next year- advice needed

[aixelsyd]

I want to build arches for next year. I would like to build these and wanted to ask some questions and advice since the sales / discounts are upon us. I'm thinking 3 arches for the first year.

If you were starting over what would you do differently? Segmented pieces of the arch or just full arch? I figure the segmented kind would mean storage would be easier and assembly is faster since they would be together all ready.

Would you go LED or Incandescent? Or even the RGB strip I saw posted in another thread. Hard to compare the RGB since it would give a lot more options in the display of course. I still have to read up on it too.

I've almost convinced myself to just spend the money on LEDs (sealed ones) just because of the energy and longevity but I wanted to ask what others have figured out over the years.

Thank you,

Jason

[mmciver]

Well, I will give you my .02

First of all, I like 8 segments. Goes well with the controllers as well as most music.
I love these arches with the north poles on them! In Fact, your thread reminded me to look at building them again
I have seen multiple threads about how to put lights on them and the way I am looking at doing it is using the 3/4" PVC for the arch, but buying some 1 inch black plastic drip line. Cut the drip line into 15 inch segments. Put the lights on the 8, 15inch pieces of the black drip line and then slide those over the 3/4"PVC. Makes storage real easy!!!

I am a big LED Fan!!! I have noticed that they are brighter! Require less of them to light up an item in the yard, and after 4 years, even the cheap ones are still bright solid colors!!! This is big! In Arizona, red/green/blue incan's become white after 2 years! I have LED's that have been in the yard for 4 years and are still vibrant and bright. Just like the day I put them up!!! Oh, yeah, and they take less power also
If you can afford them, go with LED. Catch CDI's presale that is going on now! Buy them cheap from reputable sources!
RGB is also very cool, I have some RGB in my display. However, I think that RGB needs to be used where it makes sense and not everywhere! Also, if you made arches now with standard strands and decide to move them to RGB later, you can always re-purpose your existing strands to some other area of your yard!

Good Luck and have fun building your arches!!!

Mike.

[biggen112345]

I love this idea, and even shows you the storage aspect of it all. Trying these next year.
http://www.loopychristmas.com/index....ects&Itemid=58

[aixelsyd]

What size of LED string would be good for the segments? The incandescent arches always use 100ct it seems. Could I get away with 70ct?

[SteveMaris]

I would recommend making sleeves as shown above. Easy storage, Easy replacement if a section goes out.
You could get away with 70ct. Let the light string determine how big the sleeve will be.
I also used the 1 1/4 plastic sump pump hose (6.99 25ft @ Menards) started at one end with a zip tie and then cut it at the other end with another zip tie to hold the lights in place. I used 70ct led's and the sleeves ended up being about 13 inches each.

[CaptKirk]

I did 20' 3/4" PVC based arches (that end up just under 6' at the apex of the arch) with 8 segments per arch. The segment length ended up around 29" and to tightly cover the segment, I needed two 50 led strings per segment. It is BLINDINGLY bright as it turns out that with 4" spaced strings on 3/4" PVC- the LEDS all end up on the same side of the pipe. I believe I could have done a single 50 led per segment with the LEDS more spaced out but then the LEDs likely would not have ended up all facing forward. 70s would likely work really well especailly if you are not doing 20'. The best thing you can do is to get a small length of pipe and prototype it to see what you like. See how the leds wrap, what spacing looks good, etc. Then duplicate.

I wish I had known about the 1" drip line techniqe BEFORE I wrapped 2 20' pipes with the 32 50 LED strings straight to the pipe. THAT is not something I would recommend to anyone.

One tip for LED orientation on the pipe is that if you are wrapping and everything is lining up like you like, then you hit a stretch where it seems like they shortend or lengthened the wire- take a look at how tightly twisted the string itself is. A loosely twisted string is longer than a tightly twiasted string. By simply addjusting the twist, you can adjust where the LEDs end up on your pipe.

Hope this helps,

Kirk

[rca]

I would recommend making sleeves as shown above. Easy storage, Easy replacement if a section goes out.
You could get away with 70ct. Let the light string determine how big the sleeve will be.
I also used the 1 1/4 plastic sump pump hose (6.99 25ft @ Menards) started at one end with a zip tie and then cut it at the other end with another zip tie to hold the lights in place. I used 70ct led's and the sleeves ended up being about 13 inches each.

I did mine like Steve did with the 70ct LEDs and agreed they are about 13 inches long. For the size arches I think you were looking at in the original post they work great. Mine are 8 segments.

This is WAY easier to deal with then the original idea of wrapping a long piece of PVC. I did that originally and they looked great but were a total PAIN to store and to replace lights on. Replacing a string was just plain terrible.

Definitely do the segments.

Ron

[CaptKirk]

AGREED says the person who just did it the "wrong" way!!

[bcstuff]

I did the arches in the wiki
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com...tle=Light_Arch

The only difference is that I only had 8 segment with 100ct strings and I used 1" non metallic EMT because when I wrapped my LEDs around the 3/4" I didn't like how the lights lined up.
I thought it would be a little to stiff when I first finished but they were not too bad and they are pretty stable free standing slid over 2' rebar 18" in the ground.

[kychristmas]

Stop by some time and I'll show you mine. I think you can do the 70ct strings on them. The only thing I would change about my segments is I would paint the Grey PVC before appying lights.