How long does it take?

How long does it take for fish to find your crappie condos?

I know that there are a lot of variables, but assuming it is in a good spot what is a reasonable amount of time to expect to be fishing on it?

I've caught fish in beds 2 days after dropping the beds in. PVC tends to take longer to start producing than wood structure.
All I ever put in is either stake beds or PVC bucket beds.
I will say as I'm sure your aware of is that current, depth, time of year, water clarity, and water elevation all either help or hurt whether they produce immediately.

Picture this. You take about 15 long 2X4s fishing with you. When you get to the place you want to fish you start driving them into the river bottom at a depth they will reach and 15-20 feet apart. After you get them all in you go back to the beginning and start fishing around them and catch fish. I've never done this but watched it being done and apparently this is the only way this ole man ever fished. He said if needed he would move them until he started catching fish. I did watch him catch a few crappie but I believe he was mostly after white perch. I am/was too lazy to do to that much work but it worked. I just had a thought - spray a bottom section of the 2X4 with slab sauce before putting them in. I don't think there was such a thing back then.

no joke,my wife and I put out some bamboo,we went back over it 30 minutes later,just to see if it had settle like we wanted it,we caught 2 nice slabs of off it that day.i believe crappie are somewhat curious they wanted to see what had fallen in the water,so they came to check it out.we did put it close to where we knew fish were using.

Time of year , lake , depth , temperature , and what you make them out of are a few factors . Seen them never hold fish , fish next day , and some seasonal . Not one fits all .

Once upon a time on a reservoir near me an expert and intrepid gentleman named Terry Judy volunteered in early March to do 40 "C" trees in our southernmost approved spot 600' from the prime walleye netting spot. He made a 1st pass to become acquainted with his bombing run, fish alarm beeping twice then turned around and dropped the 1st set of 8 precisely shallow at 8 fow into 15 then came around to admire his handiwork. Startled with what his sonar and fish alarm were telling him he raced back to the brand new main boat ramp and reloaded and insisted that I go with him. Upon arriving the orientation pass was a real shocker as the fish alarm started going nuts like a badly malfunctioning alarm clock and the sonar lit UP upon covering the deeper upright trees. Thrilled, I looked at him and said " You found the mother lode !" He looked at me grinning madly and calmly replied " We didn't find it , we just created it !" By the time the last of them were in place larger fish were already showing up to stalk the seemingly out of no where clouds of small fish that were quickly swarming in them. Was hooked at that time, watching them work their magic within minutes of coming to rest in very early spring...