This was my second year do do a low-voltage RGB lighting display. Each individual light is addressable and can turn any color you want it to independently. All of the lights(2,100) I used are 12VDC nodes (with the exception of the flood lights which are 12VAC). All of the hardware I used came as empty PCB boards that required each component to be soldered on and built.

All of the programming was done with a combination of two different free software packages called Vixen & Xlights. Within the software the correct channels orders are set up. It requires you to tell each node when to turn on/off and also what color to be. The entire display runs on a Pi. The Pi outputs to my pixelnet dongle that can control up to 32k channels. From the dongle I run cat5 to my hubs & controllers out in the yard. The Pi, dongle, & FM transmitter and overall layout design can be seen below.




The hub is outside in a battery box to protect it from the elements. I built a little platform for the hub so that the ATX power supply that powers the hub (and all the lights) could fit beneath. The hub has 16ports, each capable of controlling a 'Smart String Controller'. These little controllers are the ones you see housed in the 1" PVC pipe below (for reference each is about ~4-5" long). There are 2 connectors attached to each controller, the gray one in the picture is a female cat5 connector that is the input from the hub to the controller. The white one is a 3pin connector that plugs directly into the light strands. Stranded cat5 was used for power and data to the strings.





RBG Floods: The 'dot' you see in the middle of the housing is the 30W RGB light that is extremely bright. I used a standard halogen flood light housing that I gutted and replaced with the piece below. The metal pieces serves as a place to mount everything and also acts as a heatsink for the light. Aside from Christmas I use them for up-lighting my trees. These are the only AC powered elements, but are also 12v.




New this year was a mega tree I designed to attach to my oak tree. Pictured below is the controller built to run the tree along with the 2 associated 12vdc power supplies. I used bullet nodes with HDPE strips. I have 12 strings of 100 nodes that are zig zaged, 50 going up the tree & 50 coming down, creating a total of 24 'strands'. I drew up a bracket that would be mounted directly to the tree and was able to get a local fab shop to make it for me using rolled angle iron.




7'4" wide at the base, 12'6" tall.




Other random pictures




And last, some of the videos.....there are 6-7 different songs that I have playing. (I was hoping to do the War Hymn as I have in past years, but that's going to have to wait until next year). If you're in the North Dallas area come by and check them out, I'll have them running for 5 or so more days.

Linus & Lucy

Christmas Eve Sarajevo

Pretty freaking cool. Wish we were close to Dallas. My kids would love seeing that.

Way to go, I'm sure you are making tons of memories for kiddos.

Good dealio. I'll definately have to come by and pay homage.

Holy crap this is awesome! POTY material.

This is some awesomely nerdy sh.t.....and I love it.

That is incredible!!!

I'll be the one to ask...total cost for all that gear?

Nice. Where in North Dallas?

Thanks for all the comments. It's a fun thing to do and I love seeing the reactions of those who watch.

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That is incredible!!!

I'll be the one to ask...total cost for all that gear?

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I won't directly answer that, but I promise it's much less than what you think since everything is DIY

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Nice. Where in North Dallas?

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Orangewood Dr (it's not a big street, I promise you'll see the lights once you turn on the street)

Pretty cool

Bravo sir!!

How much coding is involved in all this? I'm familiar with doing a "dumb" light setup on an arduino, but I've never used a pi....

How many hours does it take to do something like that? Learning, buying stuff, returning stuff that doesn't work, hanging the lights, etc... I assume once you have your setup, its just X hours per additional song.

Very cool. Always loved Charlie Brown.

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How much coding is involved in all this? I'm familiar with doing a "dumb" light setup on an arduino, but I've never used a pi....

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I'd say very little to none. Guys over at falconchristmas.com have created a great interface/scheduler for the pi. Everything else that I would consider programming isn't programming in the typical sense, it's more sequencing and timing of all the lights

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How many hours does it take to do something like that? Learning, buying stuff, returning stuff that doesn't work, hanging the lights, etc... I assume once you have your setup, its just X hours per additional song.

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Gosh I probably don't want to add it all up. I will say that the learning curve can be steep since there are a lot of different options out there believe it or not. The learning and building parts are the two that are kind of year long endeavors.

I haven't had to return anything mainly because it makes it hard since all of the lights come straight from a distributor in China. Of course there is troubleshooting, but that's part of it.

My younger brother helps me with the physical setup out in the yard, I couldn't do it without his help. I'd estimate it took us 6-8hrs a piece. It's fairly short since I've built everything with a quick/easy setup in mind.

The programming/sequencing is definitely time intensive. I'd estimate at least 6 or so hours per minute of song.

which falcon controller is that?

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which falcon controller is that?

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F16v1. It's used just for the tree

Merry Christmas -- my family looked at some timed lights last night and she said why don't you do that. I told her because I thought that people that do it spend most of the year programming and setting it up. Your 6 hours per minute of song confirms that!

I know you went open source -- is there a way to buy stuff to make it easier to do? For example, instead of spending 6 hours per minute of song, is there a program that will listen to a song and pre-program some of it?

Dumb light strands don't take nearly as long fyi.

Amazing!

Yep - it's either all in or not in for me. Dumb light stands don't float my boat!

Well instead of buying parts from everywhere, spending time programming, etc...
Here's An alternative. I can just go buy one and park it in the driveway and let it go all night.

There are some commercial products out there that can make it easier. There is Light-O-Rama (way overpriced stuff that usually lags the DIY technology) and they also make a software that really isn't any better than the freeware stuff out there (if you can't tell I'm not a Light-O-Rama fan). There's other paid programs out there too, Madrix (way pricey), and Light Show Pro.

6hrs per minute of song isn't required by any means. I could probably sequence an entire 3 minute song in a few hours, but I take alot of pride in the precision timing and making the lights 'dance' as opposed to just random movements here and there.

I'm guessing you aren't going to roll it up & put it in a Rubbermaid tub. How are you going to store all that?

Also, is there a way to share your set up & let texags take a shot at crowdsourcing a few montages for you?

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I'm guessing you aren't going to roll it up & put it in a Rubbermaid tub. How are you going to store all that?

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It'll all goes in my garage and honestly doesn't take up all that much space. I've built different brackets for for the roof grid and arches and since everything is pretty flat I can pack it in tight.

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Also, is there a way to share your set up & let texags take a shot at crowdsourcing a few montages for you?

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I'm not sure what you mean by this.

He's wanting to know if you can share your setup and addressing, and let texags put some of the shows together

Yeah, what he said.

I can't imagine how much work it would be, but it would be cool to see the lights on the roof move in a formation from the FTAB and end in the block T moving across the roof, and then all the lights scatter like crazy to get off the "field".

What you have is incredibly neat. Great work!

It's definitely crossed my mind. It's not something that would be real easy, but with a little bit of time I'm planning on doing it next year.

I did do a few A&M related things,

Awesome work. I would have saved time and left off the bevel!!

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Awesome work. I would have saved time and left off the bevel!!

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Hah, I knew I'd get crap for that.

The War Hymn is up and running at my house in North Dallas. The show rotates through 8 different songs (the War Hymn being one of them).

You can visit our page at facebook.com/lightsonorangewood for additional information as well as photos and videos of the show.

Nice work!

The horns sawed off and the band rush at the end are nice touches. Great job.