Building Mini-Trees

[N7XG]

Greetings,

I have been a member here for a year or so and have read many articled about everything. So my questions for today are about building mini-trees.

1) What I have gleeded is that most people use some configuration of tomoto cages

2) Use 200 lights for smallish tree

3) Single color tree, green, red, or mixed

4) Try and get the tree off the ground due to GFI trips due to wet ground.

So with that said.....

1) Has anyone used 2 or 3 sets of lights (green, red, white) and use a SSR to change color.

2) Have excellent expierence on building mini-trees.

Thanks
Dean

[budude]

There is a post somewhere in here by dirknerkle where he built one from PVC - no metal at all which alleviates most if not all of the issues with GFCI's going...

[Wayne J]

My mini trees are made of metal tubing, I use electriacl tape to tape up the legs, that fixed the GFI trips. I have 3 strands each of Gold, Green, and Red on them.

[ukewarrior]

Do you think it's necessary to tape only the bottom 12" or so of the legs to avoid the trips or do you have to do the whole frame?

My mini trees are made of metal tubing, I use electriacl tape to tape up the legs, that fixed the GFI trips. I have 3 strands each of Gold, Green, and Red on them.

[Wayne J]

Do you think it's necessary to tape only the bottom 12" or so of the legs to avoid the trips or do you have to do the whole frame?

I just taped up to the bottom ring (about 5").

[Virtus]

I built my mini trees with wreath easels like this.

[ctmal]

I built my trees with tomato cages, 300 lights each of red, green and white.

I taped the bottom 3 inches in electrical tape and covered with a light coat of plastidip. The on gfi trip we had was on during a storm with flood warnings issued. I think they were standing in about 5" of water.

[ErnieHorning]

I just use the standard tomato cages, lawn staple them to the ground and don't do anything special to protect against GFCI trips. Three years and no problems.

[ppohlman]

I built my mini trees with standard tomato cages. The number of lights on each tree depends on the size of the cage used. I think that I bought the 42" ones and cut off the largest ring. I use 150 lights each of Red, Green, Blue and White. To secure them to the ground, I pound a piece of rebar into the ground and place a PVC pipe on top that secures to the tip of the tree.

[kychristmas]

Wayne,
Are yours custom welded units or some sort of premade cage?