RGB Christmas Light Spheres - AKA: Paul's Balls

Our tallest tree in the front yard has never had lights on it. This year we have a plan to decorate it.

Topiary Art Works makes a metal sphere for growing topiaries in. They call it a Wire Globe 20" Diameter.

The nice thing about this sphere is that the latitudinal wire that runs around the globe is one continuous wire that makes a spiral. So ziptying a strand of lights onto the wire works out really well.

I zip-tied about 500 "pebble" or "seed" RGB lights onto the wire. Ray Wu's Aliexpress store called these lights "seed pixel string lights." I used 12v lights that have 5cm of spacing between each light.

The lights are ziptied on with 4 inch zip ties at each spot the wires meet each other.

The first one took me about 90 minutes. But now I can make one in about an hour. Calvin is the fastest at making them and can finish one in about 45 minutes.

Video showing some test patterns on a completed ball.

Here is a video of the first prototype ball running in the tree.

The tree is trimmed and ready for the balls. I planned on 20 balls but maybe won't need that many.