Lee Family Lights

Between having to work today and not feeling too hot, the rush I got yesterday after completing the Bethlehem Star was shot! I didn’t get too much done today but I did make the cat 5 cables we will need to run to our controllers. This is the first time I have ever done this so it was quite nice to be able to take a 100 foot cable and cut it down into any size that I wanted/needed. Better yet, it was nice to do that and have the cables actually work when I tested them! I have to say that once I made my first couple, it became easy after that. Let me also say NO to the boots! Those dumb things just plain out suck! What a waste of time, space and energy! So all my cables are “Bootless in Lacey” 🙂

P.S… HI CHUCK!

So after 3 days of working on it… projecting the image onto the plywood, tracing the image, cutting out the shape, straightening the lines, measuring where to put the lights, drilling the holes, applying the primer and then 2 heavy coats of paint before putting the lights in this morning… our Bethlehem Star is complete! How’s it look? The entire thing is about 6 foot 2 or so, a bit taller than me, with 185 C9 lights.

Got our two 6 foot wire trees finished after adding an additional 1000 lights to each (500 of both red and green to go along with the 350-450 white lights that were already one each) and they are now out in the yard, secured in place. Also got the outline traced for Bethlehem Star and cut. Will work more on that tomorrow.

Got some sequencing to do now 🙂

My plan was to have everything up and ready to go by 1 week before Thanksgiving… thats 2 weeks from today! 3 weeks from RIGHT NOW is when we go live!! I dont have a single light hung yet and it’s RAINING! It’s supposed to rain for the next 10 days solid… this isn’t a good thing.

I’m currently working on the twig trees. Got them put together, just got to add the red and green lights. Will look at Wally World tomorrow to see if they have lights on white wire, if not I will just use the usual green wire.

I got 8 of the 12 mini trees completed. I would have them all done but I can’t find any more 30 inch wire easels. My local Michaels is out and *might* have more in next Tuesday. Until I get those, I cant finish that project.

The Merry Christmas sign is done. Once we get it into place we might need to find a way to reinforce it, but we’ll wait until then to make sure.

The snow flakes are done except for the stands. I have what I need to make them, just gotta measure the roof to find what angle I have to make the stands.

The Bethlehem Star has yet to be started but the sheet of plywood is in my garage. I hope to get to this on Friday afternoon, if not Saturday. This one will take me a few days so I have to get started on it.

The window frames need built as well. They shouldn’t be that hard honestly, just a plain piece of wood built into a frame with lights on it.

I still have to clean up and repaint the cross as well. The only thing with it that should take any time would be waiting for the paint to dry.

WOW! 14 days and a TON to get done!!

So it took me a bit to get them all together but they are ready! We added 5 more this year, 80 channels, to our 2, 32 channels, from last year to give us 112 channels total! Let me say that they were not hard to put together, just time consuming. I got the boards already soldered, so I had to add the rest of it… put connectors on my cords, secure the board in the enclosure and so on. This is actually kinda fun cause once you got it all together, plugged in, hooked to the computer, lights plugged in and you tell it to turn all the lights on… and they do, it’s a great feeling!

The Inside Of An ACx16 Light Controller

Instead of putting up standard incandescent minis around our windows this year, like I have for many, many years, I am putting up LED’s. However, not the LED minis… I’m using C6 size LED’s. Man these babies are BRIGHT!! (see photo below) Last year was the first year I did mini’s around our windows here (at this house, since we moved in in 2005) and between my brother Judd, my nephew Jared, my buddy Bob and myself, it was a royal pain in the butt to get them up and get them to stay in place. They looked pretty good when we were done but it was a pain! This year I am gonna build frames that will fit the windows outta 1 or 2 inch trim. Then I will attach the lights in the way that I want and we will attach the entire frame to the window in a much, much easier manner than last year. Cant wait to get them up, hopefully this coming weekend so I can test everything.

C6 LED's

So we got more power! We had 3 new 20 amp breakers installed that runs 3 new 4 plug outlets! WOOHOO! 12 new outlets and 60 AMPS dedicated for our Christmas lights!

New Breakers & Plugs

In case you didn’t notice in the menu bar… we’re adding a web cam to this years display! We will be broadcasting every night of the show, weather permitting, so you can see how things are going with a live look in right here on LeeFamilyLights.com! WOOHOO!

Here is another voiceover sample courtesy of the Demented Elf…

Click here to listen to sample