X-Mas Display

I'll post some video up tomorrow of this years Christmas display. (Oops, forgot to charged the video camera.)

I was checking out some of the video's on YouTube of other peoples homes all lit up in their geekly gloriousness (yeah, not sure either one of those are actual words or not, but they seem appropriate), and noticed that some are controllable through the Internet.

Hmm, maybe I'll add that to next years plans.

1. Sync to music (in progress, lots of coding there.)
2. Broadcast music (local FM transmitter - short range.)
3. Some level of control over the Internet.
4. Webcams. What good is Internet control without the use of webcams to view it all.

I do have the controller circuitry set up where I can control it over a USB cable from a laptop, but with the controller having to be outside the house, I don't think Jenni would appreciate having to leave a window cracked open in the winter to let the cable run through.

Here's what is currently set up for this year:

For the brains of it all, a Basic Stamp 2 micro-controller / dev kit.
Power control is via a Parallax Digital IO board (8 electro-mechanical relay's) capable of 10 amps each.
Power distribution, is real ugly. I built a temporary array of outlets (4 standard wall outlets, with the tabs removed, so the each socket is powered separately.) Including 8 extension cords.
The lights themselves are (um, GE I think) LED multicolored strings (12 strands) and 2 bush/shrub nets.

And the final piece is a programmable timer that switches the AC on at 5 p.m. and off at 1 a.m. I originally planed to have the micro-controller handle the scheduling, but after some quick testing I realized that it's not very reliable as a timing source, as it drifts quite a bit without additional external circuitry (maybe next year as well...)

The Basic Stamp dev kit normally runs on a 9v battery, but after a new battery went completely dead after one night, I decided this wasn't very economical. Luckily I had a variable AC/DC wall wart that fit the bill nicely. Now at 5 p.m. when the timer turns on, the micro-controller powers up and starts it's limited timer.

Without syncing to music, I programmed in a simple 'light show' that consists of turning on each light one at a time, then reversing the process. Mixed in with lighting the trunk of the tree, and the 4 lighted branches (one in each cardinal direction.) Then a few other variations of these two ideas. This happens every 30 minutes (give or take.) Once every minute, the lights all turn off, then relight one at a time.

Like I said, very basic stuff, but it's a start.

Now my neighbors know for sure that there is a nerd in the neighborhood (as if they needed any further proof.)