Christmas Lights sync'd to music ... check...

[Chris Elston 79]

Finally had time to put up some videos of my display this year. Enjoy... http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=chakorules

[adamriffe 2]

Dang, work blocked it... Is there another way I could see it?

[Big Country 3]

That looks great.Really cool!

[TimWilborne 108]

That's great What do you neighbors think about it?

[Chris Elston 79]

So far, everyone is OK.

[cmoore73 2]

Looks Awesome, Chako!!!!! I am just wondering how you find all of the extra time with the heavy duty machine build you are "supposed" to be working feverishly on??????? LOL Maybe next year at my house. I just have to convince the wife to let me do it!

[Chris Elston 79]

All of this was programmed back in October, so I was done with the lights programming way before I got "feverishly" busy...I wish we could do simulated machines that wouldn't be too much of a hassle. In the lights programming software, you build like an HMI screen, it's really crude, but it looks like "lite-bright" to me. You draw pixel squares that are each channel on your light controller. Draw a picture. I drew what the front of my house would look like. Then you have a full blown simulator. I designed and programmed the light sequence way before Decemeber. It takes about 8 hours for a 3 minute song. So I had 32 hours of programming for 4 songs. It only took two days (two full Saturday's to string the lights up on the house). So all in all, it's like engineering. Pre-plan and design it ahead of time and it goes quick. Leaves more time to bang my head around on machine building....now that breaks over at work...I better get back to work!

[adamriffe 2]

Yes. Thanks, looks great! I know what I'll be doing next year... What does a setup like this set a person back? I saw the modules on their site, but what all do you need?

[Chris Elston 79]

Mind you I've been doing Halloween for FOUR years. Each year I bought air valves, PLCs, SMC manifolds, photoeyes, switches, wiring...etc...a collection of four years of stuff ALL of which I sold on ebay for about $1500 right before Halloween this year, and I bought all my light hardware in the SPRING, the light company runs a 40% sale in the spring. The hardware cost about $700 in the SPRING, I got the MP3 show director and two 16 channel controllers. I think more like $1000 if you bought during Nov-Dec time frame, not a good idea. I bought my enclosures (Nema 4X) from automation direct for about another $200, then another $200 in cord grips, then another $400 in SJO cords 12/3 to run dedicated runs from the controller boxes to my panel, each need 20 AMPS for 16 channels of lights. I bought all my christmas lights at K-Mart last year for 75% off, so probablly have about $200 in lights (10,500 lights). I also have about 50 extenstion cords that I got onsale at K-Mart this season for $5.00 each so $250 ish....and an FM broadcaster for about $300, with a $5.00 di-pole antenna at rat shack..let's see...little over 2 grand, so that means I spend another $700 on my display this year for 32-channels. (Over budget for the year) Next year I just need to buy another run of SJO cord, hardware at $200 per another 16 channels, and CAT5 cable to interconnect the communication from one box to another....more lights too...done...so big investment to get started but after that, reasonable to me.

[adamriffe 2]

Ok, got a shopping lost for spring... I've got PLCs sitting at home and thought about doing something with those, but that would be hard to manage with the music. And I haven't had too much time...until after Saturday!!! No more school!