Mega Tree


Mega Tree

There are days until Christmas !

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You can click on the pictures on this page for a larger version.

Our biggest display, and arguably the most eye-catching, is our Mega Tree, also known as the "Big Daddy Flagpole Tree". The Mega-Tree is a 20-foot, freestanding 3-dimensional Christmas tree, which thanks thanks to computer control, can animate, change colors, spin, flash, and do many other effects all synchronized to our FM radio broadcast of Christmas music. This tree was added to our display in 2003, and expanded in 2004.

The tree can take on many different colored effects. It can change between three different solid colors, and perform nearly an infinite number of animated multicolor effects and color morphs. In the photos below show the tree in an all-green, all-red, and a gold and red configuration.

Here are some details about the tree:

	The tree is made up of 5500 lights, including lights on a rope-light star tree topper. In 2006, we added 12 miniature "curtain strobes" which go down the center of the main pole and are used to provide a sparkling effect at certain times in the music.
	It stands approximately 20 feet high and 10 feet in diameter.

	The primary structural element for tree is a telescoping flagpole which we purchased and installed in May 2003. The telescoping nature of the flagpole allows the tree topper and lights to be installed near the ground, then the pole raised to its full 20 foot height.
	There are 37 computer-controlled channels dedicated to the tree.
	The tree consists of 12 vertical "slices", each slice being a string of lights which goes up from the base to the top of the tree and back down the opposite side.
	Each slice consists of 3 colors -- green, red, and gold. There are 3 computer-controlled "channels" per slice as well, so each color of each slice can be controlled independently by the computer-- allowing the tree to change color at will or be displayed in many combinations of color.
	Each slice consists of 3 homemade 150 mini-light sets, each created by hardwiring one 100-lite set of each color to 50 additional lights from an additional 100-lite set. The three 150 light strings were twisted together for a "mega string" of 450 lights.
	The base of the is constructed of 30' of gray PVC conduit, which bends into a circle easily, and is supported by additional lengths of conduit supported by rebar into the ground.
	As noted above, are 37 total channels, and 36 are dedicated to controlling the "slices". The remaining channel is used to control the star tree topper
	With all of the lights and the tree topper, there is a lot of weight on the flagpole, so we added some rubber drainage pipe clamps to help take the weight off of the pins that hold the pole up. The tree is also guy-roped from four directions to stabilize it.

Unfortunately it's impossible to show the animated effects via static pictures. To view the Mega Tree in action, please see the video links on our 2005 and 2004 display pages!

The two pictures above show a couple frames of the animation: to the left, a red tree with a spinning green "tree slice", and to the right, multicolored slices spinning.

The Mega-Tree was in planning and development for about a full year. There were numerous technical and logistical issues to solve. Fortunately we didn't do this in isolation-- there were a few other folks out in the PlanetChristmas chat room making similar trees, so we got to help each other through the issues. The nice thing about home-constructed displays is that even though several of us were making similar ones, they all differed significantly in terms of implementation, number of lights, and animation capabilities, so each of these is truly unique!

The Tree was expanded for 2004. The original tree contained 4600 lights and 10 slices. We decided to expand it to 12 slices because 12 is a nice number for sequencing music to (music is typically written in meters of 4 or 3, which divide nicely into 12). The tree is also somewhat fuller with the addition of these slices and additional lights.

On September 28, 2003, we ran our first "live" proof-of-concept test with the mega tree. With about 60% of the light strings completed, we hung them on the flagpole to see how it would handle the weight. Everything went well, although the test brought up some minor issues in time for us to correct them. Below are some pictures taken during this test-- note that the PVC base is just hanging (crooked) by the lights, and is not complete in these pictures since it wasn't finished for this test. As an aside, boy did we get some strange looks from neighbors driving by as we tested Christmas lights in September!

Our 2003 Christmas Log describes how this display (as well as the rest of our displays) progressed throughout the 2003 year, when it was in development.

Need more info on the tree's construction and how we set it up? Click Here for a 10 minute video which shows us setting it up for the 2005 season and describing what's involved (RealPlayer required, 15.4MB) Sorry about the terrible audio quality -- evidently our video camera picks up everything but me!

This page was last updated on Wednesday, November 15, 2006

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