My first hardware layout

[BradsXmasLights]

I'll try to get a progress shot for this year shortly

Madko, the only thing I would be worried about with not having it in an enclosure is the dust, but we are summer here of course at Xmas time, and my hubbys garage is dusty/grassy. Maybe also bugs getting in ventilations of power supply? Other than that, very clean and tidy!!!

Actually that's a very good point about mechanical protection - it will stop any creepy crawlys from causing havoc (and panic/embarrassment should it result in a fire!)
On that topic, nothing much will want crawl up a greasy cable/surface too - so that's a good way to keep geckos at bay. Works well at stopping them from lying on top of my (warmish) IR CCTV cameras too!

Rowan, the backboard panelling is slat-wall, and is used in retail shop fittings. It's really awesome stuff! I got a few panels (and heaps of hooks) from a closing down sale as they were selling fixtures and all!

 

[kane]

Any chance of photo of the back of your board? Trying to get a sense of how it is all put together. Do you run power to a breakout board, then onto individual power supplies? I am still hopeful of putting together a small show. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Will have to remember to get the car out to take a photo of the back of the board for you, but in the meantime, here's a quick description - it's pretty simple.

I have two 240v inputs that run into an enclosure on the back of that board, which houses the AVD 240v relay board. I have two relays connected to each input, and two power supplies to each relay. The relays only switch the active wire, so the earth and neutral wires of the power supplies are separately wired permanently to the input.

Having four separate relays means that I can stagger the startups of the power supplies - apparently they can sometimes draw a bit extra on startup, so having 8 startup at once could cause issues.
Hope that makes sense

 

[BradsXmasLights]

Here's the latest of Mission Control... of course missing a lot of interconnect cabling at this stage!

[attachimg=1]

 

[logandc99]

Wow! That looks so organised! You sure that's just for Xmas lights and not for a Mars landing?