For the 2024 season, we created two pixel-based spiral trees. These trees used the frame of two rope light spiral trees that we had purchased years ago. These trees were part of the display for many seasons, but the last few years required more TLC to set up and keep running. We decided to retire them at the end of the 2022 season, and do something new with them.
In the last few years, a new type of pixel light has come on the market, called seed pixels (sometimes called pebble pixels). These pixels are much smaller than the “bullet pixels” we use for most of our other pixel items, but yet they are still very bright and have all the same functionality. We ordered a spool of them with the hopes they would work well for the spiral trees. Once we got them, we could tell they would work great.
The old rope light trees had a plastic spiral that the rope was attached to. This plastic spiral was then supported by clear fishing line. Over the years, the plastic deteriorated and broke into many pieces, which was one of the reasons it was time to retire them. This meant we would need to come up with a new way to make the spiral.
After a trip to Menards, we came back with a vinyl-coated fencing wire. this wire is relatively easy to shape by hand, yet holds its shape fairly well once bent. But how to form the spiral? After exploring options such as somehow using a ring roller (which we don’t have access to) and changing the radius on the fly, we decided to just take a board and draw out measurements for the spiral on it. Then, we started shaping the spiral by hand, using wire staples to hold it to the board temporarily. This actually worked pretty well.
As mentioned above, the old tree held its shape by hanging from fishing line, and that was a good enough mechanism to use again. Using the original rope spiral as a guide, we came up with the distance needed between each spiral’s “drop” from layer to layer, then made a measuring jig to help measure this distance over, and over, and over. Then it was a matter of tying LOTS of knots… there are four fishing line drops from the top to the bottom of each spiral tree, and each spiral layer needed to be knotted to the line. All of this was done while the spiral was still stapled to the board.
Once all the knots were tied, the moment of truth had arrived. We removed all of the staples from the board, and dangled the wire from the smallest spiral. The tree unfurled, and actually looked good! What a relief.
For a topper, we found a model for a 3D printable star. With a little tweaking, we were able to add a base that would fit over the existing rod from the tree base.
Then, it was just a matter of adding the seed pixel lights. The seeds were added, starting at the bottom, using zip ties. Once we got to the top, we used hot glue to add seed pixels inside of the star topper.
All of this was repeated a second time for the second tree, creating one slightly larger and one smaller tree. Since the LEDs are pixels, they have been programmed into each sequence of our show and react to the music in many different ways – something our old static rope trees never did.
