BradsXmasLights
WiFi Interactive
Hi!
I'm from north side of Brisbane. I have a relatively small display on the scale of things; with only about 4500 lights this year. (Then again my front yard is only 15m wide.
) My display isnt in the 4KQ competition or advertised anywhere; but just private message me if you want a demo/address.
I first computerised my Christmas lights back in 2002, when very slowly built the first 64 channels of the Hill320 controller from ComputerChristmas.com. Way back then, I think I demod Vixenlights, but was rather unimpressed with it I dont think there was any audio features back then, and I didnt want to click out every note/pattern. So I ended up programming my own pattern editor & sequencer in Visual Basic 6, and the actual control program was written in QBasic (DOS based). But Qbasics ability at precision timing was pretty unstable, so the control software ended up being ported to Windows/VB6 too.
This setup then served well for quite a few years. But there was one thing I couldnt do: Music Sync. I had thought about adding this to my own program, but it was too complex for my programming knowledge.
Then about 2.5years ago, I rediscovered Vixen, and it was light-years ahead of what Id seen many years ago. So last year I did a basic (rush-job) Vixen-music sync. Now this year Ive discovered how truly time-consuming the music sync game is, and now have a 2:30 loop of Santa Claus is coming to town.
Video: Computer Controlled Christmas Lights 2010
And some pictures from last week: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=336456&id=751763905&l=f2ed62ce72 although Ive made some changes/additions since these were taken. (
I also have an old Christmas Light website; which Ive not touched in 4 years @ http://christmaslights.netbootdisk.com/ (featuring my previous home)
I'm from north side of Brisbane. I have a relatively small display on the scale of things; with only about 4500 lights this year. (Then again my front yard is only 15m wide.
) My display isnt in the 4KQ competition or advertised anywhere; but just private message me if you want a demo/address.I first computerised my Christmas lights back in 2002, when very slowly built the first 64 channels of the Hill320 controller from ComputerChristmas.com. Way back then, I think I demod Vixenlights, but was rather unimpressed with it I dont think there was any audio features back then, and I didnt want to click out every note/pattern. So I ended up programming my own pattern editor & sequencer in Visual Basic 6, and the actual control program was written in QBasic (DOS based). But Qbasics ability at precision timing was pretty unstable, so the control software ended up being ported to Windows/VB6 too.
This setup then served well for quite a few years. But there was one thing I couldnt do: Music Sync. I had thought about adding this to my own program, but it was too complex for my programming knowledge.
Then about 2.5years ago, I rediscovered Vixen, and it was light-years ahead of what Id seen many years ago. So last year I did a basic (rush-job) Vixen-music sync. Now this year Ive discovered how truly time-consuming the music sync game is, and now have a 2:30 loop of Santa Claus is coming to town.
Video: Computer Controlled Christmas Lights 2010
And some pictures from last week: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=336456&id=751763905&l=f2ed62ce72 although Ive made some changes/additions since these were taken. (
I also have an old Christmas Light website; which Ive not touched in 4 years @ http://christmaslights.netbootdisk.com/ (featuring my previous home)
