What do you do when you have some Cedar and a Miter Saw? Make a Christmas tree.

In the last image you can see I’ve glued in the 10mm LEDs. I used Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink, and a White one as the star on top. I’ll probably drive them with a simple CMOS chip (maybe a 4017 decade counter or a 4060 divider). It’s not really worth using the A6276 LED Driver, as I don’t want to use a microcontroller to drive it. Instead, it will flash the LEDs in a pseudo random fashion.

The build is easy as can be. Just cut 45 miters at the end of each board, alternating the cuts (left one side, right the other). I used 1×4 lumber and offset each level about 2″ or so. It was all pretty much by-eye, resulting in a tree that’s around 3 feet tall and old a couple of inches deep (due to the stand). The boards are then screwed to a 1×4 “trunk” using 1″ drywall screws.

The base is pretty simple, again using some scraps. I “thickened” the bottom of the trunk with some scraps, then screwed in two trapezoids to keep it stable front-to-back.

LEDs are held in place with Liquid Nails (clear). I also used some PowerGrab construction adhesive (white) on the back (just to be safe). Once that stuff has dried overnight I’ll start the wiring.