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2002 3 ft. Mini
Christmas Tree
Construction Techniques.
I used 3 foot tall
tomato cages. The top opening is
around 12 inches diameter. The first thing I did
was weld the 3 legs together.
I then got some 3
foot high chicken wire and cut the
chicken wire into a modified wedge shape that was
3 feet tall and was 4 feet wide at the bottom and 8 inches
wide at the top.
Take the chicken
wire and put it around each
tomato cage. Overlap the chicken wire and start
bending the wire back into itself to attach it together.
Start at the top and continue down until you get to the bottom.
Make sure you keep the chicken wire lined up at
the bottom. You will find the the chicken wire will
be long on one side of the bottom. Just fold this
over inside of the tomato cage.
Take your mini
lights and start wrapping from the bottom.
It is very helpful if you have a lazy susan type table
so you can spin the minitree while you are putting
on the lights. I used 300 lights on each tree. I used
small wire ties to hold the lights in place were needed.
All you need is
time to build your minitrees.
1999 Construction Techniques
This is a photo of the drive that is being
constructed by
my father, Robert Obermiller. This drive is to be used
for the Carrousel. The Carrousel is a new addition
for the 1999 display. The carrousel will rotate at
6 RPM's a minute.
This another photo of the same drive.
This is a photo of the finished drive.
This is a photo of the brushes that are used to transfer
power to the lights on the carrousel. On the left you see
2 brass bushings that were machined to fit on a PVC
pipe that was used as an insulator. In the center
of the photo you see the brush holders mounted to a
fiber nonconductive plate. The brush holders are from
a Black & Decker 7" grinder.
Testing the carrousel drive.
Left to right
Robert Obermiller, Mark Obermiller,
Carol Obermiller, and Bailey Obermiller (front)
This is a photo of one of the control boxes
during construction. See the solid state relays
mounted in the box. These are 10" X 10" X 4"
junction boxes that the relays are mounted in.
This photo shows the pilot lights mounted on the covers.
This is a photo of the boxes mounted in
Control Central.
This is a photo of myself wiring the new control boxes to
the outlets.
LOR Control Cards
This is my way of mounting the
controls.
 
I just use a Rubbermaid plastic
container to mount my controls in. This is the simplest way to mount these
controls. I seal around the cords using silicone sealer.
How do you tape the lights on?
Note: I
no longer use this taping technique. I now use
white electrical tape. I found that the nylon reinforced tape
just fall's off after a period of time.
Look at the
photo's
below for an explanation.
This is a photo of Dorrie Braden who taped thousands
of lights on to the steel silhouettes.
First have the light set turned on when you tape. Why?
If you loosen a bulb and the lights go out, it is much
easier to find the loose bulb because it is usually
the base that you just taped. We use a nylon reinforced
packing tape to tape the lights on to the frames.
Place the tape onto the base of the light.
Wrap the tape around the base and the wire frame. Make
sure you put the tape on as tight as you can. If
you don't the base of the light will move around.
Some people like to tape the wires to the frame
for a neater appearance. This is very time consuming
and you can't see the wires at night anyway, so just
let the wires hang. That's all there is to it!
Last
update:
Sunday, May 11, 2008 05:55 PM
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