Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
(1/7/2013) The lights are now off.
I plan to make a video off the show and post it here. I went out the other night and shot video of the show but I need to edit it. I used a high end point and shoot in video mode with a "mic in" from a boombox "head phones out". The camera has an audio auto gain that I can't control so the audio is horrible. I'll find out what I remember of Premeir Pro. I love Adobe Creative Cloud. More on that later too.
(12/31/2012) I added a song.
The light show will be on nightly till Jan 5 starting at 5:00pm and will run every half hour with the last show starting at midnight.
The associated music can be heard at 101.7 FM (radio).
The best view is from the other side of the street. If you're in your car, please turn your lights off during the show.
Please be respectful of the neighbors. They are kind enough to not complain to the HOA, so please don't give them any other reason to complain.
I hope to add a couple more songs before the season is over. If I do, I will update this page.
Song List:
- Opening Thunder - Unknown
- Linus explains the meaning of Christmas - from Peanuts Christmas Special
- Sleigh Ride - Boston Pops
- Decorations - Bob Rivers
- Reflections of Earth - from Illuminations show at Epcot in WDW
Girl Scout Cookies
My daughter is selling Girl Scout Cookies. If you would like to order some, hit the "Contact" tab above. It doesn't have anything to do with the show, but hey, my daughter is selling Girl Scout Cookies. Cookies are $4/box. All varieties are available. I'll update this page with a list.
Technology:
I use controllers from Light-O-Rama. There are 48 individually controllable channels for A/C power and 16 channels for D/C power. I don't use all the channels. Programming the lights to the music is called sequencing. Sometimes I modify a sequence someone has already made and sometimes I will make my own. Think of a spreadsheet with the channel list as the rows and the time count as the columns with each column representing 1/20 of a second. The spreadsheet cell value tells the channel what percent "on" to be for that 20th of a second. Yes, it is very time consuming.
I try to use as much LED instead of incandescent as possible for a number of reasons (low amperage, reliability, long life, color purity, etc) even though LED's have their own issues (expensive, don't dim smoothly). I don't know how many bulbs I have. Too many to easily count and not enough to be impressive (I mean, look around. Bulb count is nothing in this neighborhood)
I try to build my own wiring harnesses from SPT-1 wire instead of using standard extension cords as much as possible. I do not know how many feet of wire I use. I know I used up a 1000ft and 250ft spool and I still use several 40ft or 100ft extension cords. So, call it ... hum, a lot.
The control boxes are wired together with Cat-5 wire. Its not Ethernet, its just convenient.
I use a low power FM transmitter so the neighbors don't have to listen the same songs over and over and over and over agian.
The flood lights and sign light are RGB (Red/GreenBlue) tunable LED floods mounted in work light housings. One flood takes 3 D/C channels.
--je