Hollandmiller Family Christmas
From Phospher
November 14, 2010 at 12:10pm PST
This is our first Christmas light display that will consist of light sequencing using 6xSS24 and 2xSS8 Renard automation controllers.
Credit of obsession given to DoItYourSelfChristmas.com.
Boards and parts laid out.
Boards and parts laid out.
Ready to start assembly.
Video of me assembling the second SS24 at 1000% acceleration.
3 hours later, first board finished.
3 hours later, first board finished.
I picked up two 125amp sub-panels to house the controllers--just need to strip out the busing.
Enclosures
The NiCad batteries for my circular saw are shot... Needed a workaround.
Enclosures mounted
Plywood 20.5"x13.75"x1.5" panels cut and mounted inside the enclosures
First SS24 mounted
Second SS24 mounted. 4 more SS24s and 2 more SS8s to go!
I'm using this stuff in 1/2" pieces as PCB stand-offs.
November 16, 2010 at 9:20pm PST
Seeing if building two at once speeds things up.
Yep,.. it's faster.
November 17, 2010 at 5:22pm PST
Ready to build 24 mini-trees out of pot catch trays and allthread.
November 21, 2010 at 4:56pm PST
Raw materials for arches
Building arches
One strand (100 lights) wrapped on first arch
Roman helping me hang lights
November 24, 2010 at 7:01pm PST
A little GIMP photo editing, and I've come up with this.
Final production, amazing job and edits done by TriCityPlastics!
December 2, 2010 at 6:01pm PST
Enclosures arrive, finally!
I was able to get four mounting screws in place.
First one (out of 5) done.
Another shot
5 Renard SS24 controllers complete. I have one more SS24 and two SS8s left. I don't need them this year.
December 3, 2010 at 7:45pm PST
I was forced to use RS485, the distance and speed of RS232 wasn't enough. RS485 gives us more speed at greater distance:
RS232 Topology: Point-to-Point Max distance: 15m Max speed: 20kbps RS485 Topology: Multipoint Max distance: 1200m Max speed: 35Mbps
.5watt FM transmiter--seems to broadcast in a 1.5 mile radius which slightly exceeds the FCC max of a 200' radius, oops....
December 4, 2010 at 5:45pm PST
We're live! 101.1FM. I'll post videos soon.
If you're in the neighborhood, Dichondra Place Newark, CA 94560--you can't miss us :).
We have one sequence playing tonight. We're actively working on more sequences. Hopefully we'll be adding a new song every few days.
We have over 1900' of SPT1 18/2 wire. I was forced to ditch the centralized approach for individual enclosures due to the amount of wire it would have taken to hook everything up (over 12,000' of 18/2 would have been needed).
The system pulls anywhere from 0-50AMPS at 120VAC.
December 5, 2010 at 12:20am PST
My first attempt at sequencing
Brian Setzer's Jingle Bell Rock
December 5, 2010 at 6:48pm PST
My wife (April) just finished Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Wizards In Winter. We have two sequences playing tonight, Wizards In Winter and Jingle Bell Rock.
I'll post more videos soon.
April wants to give credit to the original Wizard in Winter, Carson Williams, for the original sequencing, to Bradley Jacobs for saving and posting the sequencing before it was yanked, and to Greg Jones, on Doityourselfchristmas.com, for converting that sequence to Vixen. From there it was a matter of moving the specific song sequences to the right channels in our yard—and no small amount of time investment and creativity to make it really dance on our light setup. Direct quote mid-sequencing: “Dear God, I hate those @#$*ing arches.”
December 5, 2010 at 9:45pm PST
Video of our Wizards In Winter sequence.
December 10, 2010 at 7:30pm PST
We added three new sequences tonight! I'll post videos soon.
December 10, 2010 at 10:05pm PST
Rough night. Loads of freezes and lockups. I haven't found the problem yet. It seemed like a lack of resources, but nothing changed. I'm building a new computer tonight.
December 11, 2010 at 7:00pm PST
I built a new computer last night to run the sequences--it looks like that fixed it. The old machine didn't haven enough CPU to bitbang the RS485 serial port.
December 11, 2010 at 8:30pm PST
Santa's bike mob swarmed our house tonight!
December 12, 2010 at 5:30pm PST
Videos of our new sequences
My favorite--Music Box Dancer by DJ Schwede
Amazing Grace by Yule
Jingle Bells by Stratos
Special thanks to the Holdman Family for sharing their sequences--a huge help in providing a foundation for creating our sequences for these three songs.
November 24, 2011 at 2:51pm PST
Started at 8am today and ended around 1:30am. Everything is up and running with much help from Jeremy!
We're running the sequences we ran last year. We might put a few new ones out in a week or so.
November 25, 2011 at 10:31pm PST
The display kept freezing tonight. We discovered a broken RS485 RTx line. The show goes on...
January, 2 2011 at 5:31pm PST
All went well this year. We had to replace the RS485 USB adapter. Special Thanks to Jeremy for the help setting up and tearing down the display!
