RichardH 0 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Well I got half my megatree done today. First time making one and it is a Mega a lot of work! - 5,000 Lights on - 5,000 more to go! Should be able to finish it up tomorrow. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Santas Helper 9 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Very nice mega work Richard :waycool:. How tall is it? And what type of pole design? Tom Edited:spelling Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RichardH 0 Posted November 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 It is 20 feet tall using two 10ft fence rails. I used 32 eye hooks and put a piece of string through each one. From the ground I tie on 3 sets at a time and then raise them up. This also allows me to bring a string down during the season if I need to fix or replace it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jingle Bell Girl 0 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Wow! I am so jealous! Just beautiful! Great job! Looks like much work and time! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Peggy13 0 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Wow that is awesome! You make it sound so simple. Peggy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tim_L 0 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Nice job Richard. I'll be getting mine up either today or tomorrow. I am soooooo behind. :-( Tim Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest jmulls Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Rich Looks great... so how do you get to the top? Ladder looks a bit small, and if you're that tall I am sure there's a few NBA teams that may wanna talk to ya!!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RichardH 0 Posted November 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 It is secured to the ground with a stake. All the supplies I bought at Home Depot. What I did was drive a 3 foot stake into the ground about 2 feet. I then used some fence parts that go around the stake and then clamped to the pole. If you go to the fence section at Home Depot you will see the part I used (not sure what it is called). The hole is not quite big enough to fit the stake so you will have to work it a bit but is not really that hard. (I used two of these clamps, the bottom one is being hidden by all the wire.) You will have to use guy wires to secure it and make sure you do the middle also otherwise it will bow (you can see both sets of guy wires in the night time picture). Once you do, it is very secure. The pole is made by taking 2 10' sections of fence railing and they are designed to slide right into each other. I painted my pole black. Here is a shot of the top. A lot of fence parts here also. What I did was clamp down 4 L brackets to the pole with the same style C clamps that I used to secure my pole to the stake that goes into the ground. This was a bit tricky since the C clamps where a little to small for the job but I managed to get it to work. Since so many parts of the C clamp stick out, I was able to secure my guy wires around this. I then screw on the top piece of wood and painted everything black Like in my other post I put pieces of string through the eye hooks so I could tie on strands of lights and pull them up. I am not sure I would use this method in the future since the string gets tangled very easily. It may be better to use hooks instead and then put zip ties on the end of your strands and then use a long stick with a nail on the end to hook it on. You can see the string that I had to tie off on the bottom of my pole in the picture above. If somebody came along and used a knife to cut them all, all my strands would come crashing down. :shock: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BetterDays 0 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 If someone did cut those and they came down, they may only cut one or two before they realize "uh oh" and leave. Did you place anything on the other end of the string to make sure that it does not go through the loophole at the top? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RichardH 0 Posted November 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 BetterDays wrote: If someone did cut those and they came down, they may only cut one or two before they realize "uh oh" and leave. Did you place anything on the other end of the string to make sure that it does not go through the loophole at the top? I don't think anybody will be going in the center since there is only4 inch spacing at the bottom between the strands of lights. On the other end of the string are the lights and they are much to big to go through the holes. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RichardH 0 Posted November 19, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2006 Megatree is DONE! This is my first year and it took me way longer than I thought. I am guessing it took me about 15 hours total to set it up. Whew! Here is a picture of me raising the last strands up. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jfelix 7 Posted November 19, 2006 Report Share Posted November 19, 2006 Richard we need a night shot buddy!!!!! Looks great. I have yet to build mine, but 15 hours. If I take that long my wife will kill me. Spent all day running wire today, so she is already MAD. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Peggy13 0 Posted November 19, 2006 Report Share Posted November 19, 2006 It is absolutely phenominal! Your hard work has paid off. Peggy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
schristi69 0 Posted December 10, 2007 Report Share Posted December 10, 2007 Is your tree static? If not, how many controllers/channels are you using? If I calculated correctly, 3 strands per eyelet is 96. A lot of channels unless you are doing multiple strings per channel. Scott Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RichardH 0 Posted December 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2007 You surprised me by digging up this old thread. I have 24 channels for the mega tree. 8 each for Red, Green, and White. Each channel controls two strands on one side and two strand on the other side like a /\ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
schristi69 0 Posted December 10, 2007 Report Share Posted December 10, 2007 Thanks!! Scott Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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