NEW for 2021 the Singing Christmas tree’s moved up to the garage roof for all to see better. Changes included mounting the controllers to the side of the garage, modifying the frames to a kickstand style, using 25lb (half-filled) sand bags, and making 32 new extension cords out of SPT-1 wire.
TIP: When you need sandbags where do you go? Sandbaggy.com of course! 🙂 I’m using the Ultra Heavy Duty Black sand bags which can survive 4,000 hours of UV (i.e. Sun) exposure and be dropped 40 times without leaking sand! At $2.60 per bag it was a very modest investment and kept the tree’s safely mounted even in 60MPH winds and many inches of the fluffy stuff (that’s snow to you Southerners)!
In The Beginning
My wife saw the Singing Christmas tree’s on a YouTube video and said, “That’s really cool, I want those!” So that was the next element to add to the display. I found the most common singing tree’s start with templates made out of Coro, short for corrugated plastic. Think of cardboard, but made out of thin plastic instead of paper. Interestingly enough this is how HolidayCoro.com started its business, making display elements out of coro like the Singing Tree’s. They have two sizes, 46″ x 46″ and 23″ x 23″, I am using the smaller ones.
The Build
After buying the templates for the tree’s, I needed several colors and lengths of LED mini-lights. That’s when I found Holiday-Light-Express as discussed on the LED Light’s page. HolidayCoro provides instructions with suggested colors to use for each facial feature. They also print the channel number and number of lights needed for each feature on the back of the coro sheet. This is where Holiday-Light-Express.com selling 35, 50, 70, and 100 count light strings in a variety of colors comes in handy.
The LED M6 mini-lights push through the coro and snap in place for a tight seal. Pushing in 284 lights per tree is hard on the fingers so you may only want to work on one or two at a time. TheChristmasLightEmporium.com site sells blackout caps to block light from any unused lights, or you can wrap them in black plastic, etc. to hide them on the back of each coro tree.
TIP – When building four tree’s I started two of the tree’s with the plugs on the right side and the other two tree’s with all plugs starting on the left side. If you put a right and left side wired tree next to each other with the controller in the middle it reduces the length of extension cords needed.
Next we need build a frame for the coro sheet with lights. I built the frame out of 1/2″ pvc pipe, but you can use all types of materials including wood or metal. You just need a material that you can build into a square shape and attach the coro to. I used the pre-drilled holes around the edge of the coro sheet to secure it to the pvc using short 3/4″ self tapping sheet metal screws with large fender washers. Do not overtighten, you only need the screws to be snug to hold the coro against the frame.
I built the frame with the ability to attach removable sides using clevis and hair pins. The sides are built with a place to mount the controllers. I found while the pvc works for the fairly lite weight coro with lights attached, it’s not the strongest material to hold the weight of the 22 lb LOR Pro light controllers, especially in high winds. I am planning to build a separate controller stand using Steel U-Fence Post next season.
See the other pages in the Build menu to learn more details about each display element or click here to read about the AC Controller House Mount.