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FAQ's |
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We get the same questions asked over and over again...Here's some of the more common ones with our answers... |
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| Are you nuts? | Depends who you ask. Most people think so. |
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| How many lights do you have? | Last year (2008) we had just over 40,000 lights, which is down from our peak of 60,000. |
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| What is your display worth? | I've
never totaled it up, because my wife regularly asks that question.
If I had an answer, I'd have to tell her, 'cause I suck at lying.
:-( Most of the components in my panel
(SSR's and the like)
were bought off eBay with CONSIDERABLE savings. Most of the oddball
stuff was bought at a local surplus store, and the rest at Home
Depot. If I had to pay retail for EVERYTHING, it'd probably be
upwards of $10,000. But I didn't, so it's OK.
2008 Answer: Now that the panel has been rebuilt, we have moved from SSR's, towards a commercially available product. Believe it or not, the cost is about the same. |
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| How much does it cost you to run each year? | It really doesn't cost that much. Pre-computerization, it
was only $145 extra for the month. Now, I figure it's less than
$100.
2009 Answer: With the LED conversion underway, we expect this cost to be reduced to under $10 a season by 2011. |
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| How long does it take you to put this together? | Last year (2008), was 100 hours of total setup time, with about another 200 hours throughout the year. That was spread over several people. |
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| How much power does it use, and is it safe? | Peak power last year was 146.4 Amps (16,000 Watts - About the equivalent of running 12 hair dryers at the same time). Keep in mind that is the peak amount, most of the time the display is only drawing about 60 - 90 amps. The display is very safe. We have 16 dedicated circuits, all GFCI (Ground fault circuit interrupted) protected. This will shut off the power immediately if any current passes to ground (ie. the grass, a wet bush, or through someone's body). It makes the display much more difficult to keep running in the rain, but safety has to come first. If it's wet out, and part of the display isn't working, that's why. From the panel, the display is broken down into 128 individual circuits so very little current is actually passing through any cord in the yard. The chance of anything overheating is pretty well zero. |
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| Do you work on this all year long? | I try to take a few month break. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. |
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| Where do you store it, and how much room does it take up? | I don't have the room here for it all. The fence we store in the shed, but the rest goes to the crawl space at my parents house. The lights, garland and extension cords spool up on 28 cable reels and are shrink wrapped. Everything else goes in boxes or tubs. It all takes up an area about 20' X 20' X 3', and takes several truck loads to deliver. |
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| What do the neighbors think? | All in all we get a pretty good response from everyone. Most people think we're nuts, but I think they're glad we live in their neighborhood. |
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| Why do you do it? | Our reasons have changed over the years. The reason for the computer controls was just to prove to myself that I could. The overall reason though, is just to watch the kids watch the lights. |
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| Do you raise money for anyone? | 2005 was the first year we did. We had so many people in the past ask us what our charity is because they want to give us money...I figure we're doing this anyways, why not let somebody benefit... To date, (October 2009), we have raised nearly $20,000. |
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| How many years has this been going on? | 2009 will be our 8th year. |
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| How many people see this each year? | We estimated about 30,000 - 40,000 people visit us each year. |
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| How do you decide what you are going to do each year? | Most of the decisions are based on what we did last year, and what worked. The decision to computerize was an obvious one. We have so many ideas for next year, from webcams to the real Santa in a full size sleigh in the garage for photos. Finances play a big role too, as some of this stuff isn't cheap. :-( |
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| Are there things you don't like? | We like to keep the display hand made, and things other people generally don't do. There's a lot of unique things you can do with a welder, some lumber, a pile of scrap metal, and a few boxes of lights. |
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