OurMikeyRocks
Christmas Lighting For The Fun Of It
In this photo, circa 2012, you can see several of the elements of my display with the Ferris Wheel in the middle of them. Here the trees are still using the standard LED strings.
The Ferris Wheel is about 11 feet tall. The PVC is 1 inch, schedule 40, and the spools are about 7 inches in diameter. I use a 1/14th HP Dayton motor with a built in 256:1 reduction gear to produce a final rotating rate of about 5 RPM. The Teddy Bears are off-the-shelf 30 inch dolls that are actually in 4 sets of matching pairs. They look just fine in the pcitures and from the street, but up close they show their 14 years of sitting in the wind and rain, plus they don't smell real good.
The Ferris Wheel was added to the display in 2001, so it will be 15 years old during the 2015 season. The carousel (in the background) is the only piece in the display that is older, but only by one year. For those of you who want to know more about this project, go to the How To page and follow the link to a video I put together on the construction of the Ferris Wheel.