Hello all. I've already had the pleasure of being helped by several of you here so thanks for that! I figured I should maybe do the 'official' hello.
I'm a mid 40's dad to two big little girls (10 and 7) and a self professed tinker. I'm at the beginnings of a new love in electronics that was kicked off by building an MPCNC, and then a 3d printer and then a laser MPCNC and then another 3d printer. These projects got me interested in these magic little computers you can buy (Arduino, Pi) and all that you can do with sensors and wires. Jump to summer 2018. The christmas lights that "came with the house" were finally fading and falling off so I took them down. After looking into what it would cost to put new ones back up I told my wife we'd go that winter without, save the time and money and put computer controlled lights up for next Christmas - that's this coming Christmas.
With the help of a local enthusiast who went down this path himself last winter we bent up some gorgeous tin channel, mounted a couple hundred pixels to the soffit of the house and have now moved to the bullets which will ultimately be installed around each of ten windows on the front face of our home. A funny thing happened when I built my arches though - I got it in my mind that I should use them to make a giant spider for the halloween season and THEN install them as proper arches for the holidays. Well, after the spider plan was hatched I turned my attention to the 24 strings of bullets I had ordered and proceeded to turn them into a giant web for said spider.
I'm actually more excited about what happens AFTER Christmas though. I'm a chainsaw carver and the winter season typically sees my front yard all filled up with ice and snow sculptures INCLUDING a 30-40 foot ice slide. We always put lights in the slide and it's a big hit in the neighbourhood. This year I'll have lights that I can control and sequence to the music! I plan on building the window surround lights in individual sections of PVC pipe so that as soon as the Christmas season is over I can take them down and use them not only around the ice and snow carvings but also in the slide. And then it'll all be sequenced in XLights for everyone to enjoy well into March! This year's theme - Under the Big Top!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmo...rts-davies-ice-carver-snow-edmonton-1.4524585
I'm a mid 40's dad to two big little girls (10 and 7) and a self professed tinker. I'm at the beginnings of a new love in electronics that was kicked off by building an MPCNC, and then a 3d printer and then a laser MPCNC and then another 3d printer. These projects got me interested in these magic little computers you can buy (Arduino, Pi) and all that you can do with sensors and wires. Jump to summer 2018. The christmas lights that "came with the house" were finally fading and falling off so I took them down. After looking into what it would cost to put new ones back up I told my wife we'd go that winter without, save the time and money and put computer controlled lights up for next Christmas - that's this coming Christmas.
With the help of a local enthusiast who went down this path himself last winter we bent up some gorgeous tin channel, mounted a couple hundred pixels to the soffit of the house and have now moved to the bullets which will ultimately be installed around each of ten windows on the front face of our home. A funny thing happened when I built my arches though - I got it in my mind that I should use them to make a giant spider for the halloween season and THEN install them as proper arches for the holidays. Well, after the spider plan was hatched I turned my attention to the 24 strings of bullets I had ordered and proceeded to turn them into a giant web for said spider.
I'm actually more excited about what happens AFTER Christmas though. I'm a chainsaw carver and the winter season typically sees my front yard all filled up with ice and snow sculptures INCLUDING a 30-40 foot ice slide. We always put lights in the slide and it's a big hit in the neighbourhood. This year I'll have lights that I can control and sequence to the music! I plan on building the window surround lights in individual sections of PVC pipe so that as soon as the Christmas season is over I can take them down and use them not only around the ice and snow carvings but also in the slide. And then it'll all be sequenced in XLights for everyone to enjoy well into March! This year's theme - Under the Big Top!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmo...rts-davies-ice-carver-snow-edmonton-1.4524585
