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Sorry, I don't have the time to pretty up this page right now.
Liquid X-Mas
LCD Driven Animation
Win 98 XP DOWNLOAD
Vista Download
Limited demo beta version
Fully functional but limited to 10 circuits
Zip file
LCD.exe (main program)
playlist.ini
No installation - this is a stand alone EXE file.
Place it in any directory you like. To uninstall simply delete the file or
directory.
The playlist.ini file must be in the same directory as the EXE file.
Questions? Email Ben
My first year - Christmas lights 2006
The video isn't very good (shot with a digital camera - not a video camera) and does not do the light show justice but it's all I have.
The timing is slightly off (on the video) but it gets the
general idea across.
There were also more blue lights than what shows up in the video.
Rope lights are not very bright. I'm going to use icicle lights next year and
find another place for the rope.
| My light controller works by replacing
the rotary variable resistor in a standard house lighting dimmer with a
light sensitive resistor. I then use squares of light on a computer
monitor to control the dimmers. It uses 100 steps of gray scale to control
the dimming. I built the program using an unconventional programming language that I was familiar with called Game Maker. I made a "game" to control little white squares that run the light sensitive resistors. Game maker is graphically orientated making it easy to do what I wanted. |
The hardware
I have not
completed testing and I do not recommend anyone try to attempt
this unless they know what they are doing!! I plan on performing more tests for
possible problems like electrocution, fire, etc...
Bottom line: Try this at your
own risk!
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4 circuit pack. I used cat5 network cable to run back to the computer screen. 8 wires, 2 for each circuit. I doubt cat5 is necessary but it's what I had on-hand. |
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24 circuit pack 24 dimmers, 12 outlets It has three power inputs, each powering 8 circuits. 3 separate power inputs was a bit overkill for my project this year (I could have run all my lights on one 20 amp outlet) but I wanted to be safe and prepared for later years when I may have more lights hooked up on each circuit. |
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Each outlet is isolated but sharing
the same ground making each outlet control 2 circuits. I made one mistake with 2 dimmers on this board powering outlets on the other board. It made wiring a bit more complicated. If I did this again, I'd find another spot for the wiring block and keep the dimmers on the same board as the outlets. One central 24 port box is handy but I plan on just making 4 port boxes from now on. |
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I'm in the telephone business so I had access to cables and connectors. I used a standard 66 punch down block and 50 wire cable to run all 24 circuits back to the computer screen. That left one pair (2 wires) unused but it didn't make sense to try and cram one more circuit. |
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I drilled out holes on a piece of Plexiglas for the wires on the light sensitive resistors. The left wire runs directly to the 24 port box using a 50 foot cable. The right wire has an adaptor on it for 6 (8-wire each) network cable plugs. |
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I held the sensor panel on the laptop
screen with velcro. If anyone wants to try this, I plan on making these Plexiglas screens to go with the software. Also, to lower the cost of the light sensitive resistors I plan on buying a large quantity and selling them at cost. If people are interested let me know. |
The
software
Software Features
Picture Upload with automatic re-size
Draw virtual lights over your picture using common adjustable shapes tied to
circuit numbers
Choose any color for each circuit
Attach any track on a music CD to your light show
Program light data in virtual view using the number key's 1- 0
Save and Undo buttons in virtual view
Graph view
Graph circuits are the same color as chosen in virtual
Circuit numbers shown and number of circuits shown adjustable in graph view
Record graph data in sections from 1/20 second to unlimited length
Zoom out 50% in graph view
Fade in, fade out, fade in & out, cut, copy, paste in graph view
Swap complete circuit data
Program light chase by selecting circuits, start and end time, # of loops
Circuits can be set to toggle permanently on/off
Adjust screen to fit different monitors and resolutions
Calibrate high and low light level for each circuit for more accurate dimming
Some known problems and limitations
Dimming up from (off) doesn't work very well due to the limitations of cheap
household dimmers. From 0-100 the lights first come
on very bright at around 50 but will dim down quite a bit from there. So
if you program a slow dim up for 10 seconds the lights wouldn't come on for the
first 4-5 seconds. If you dim down from full it works correctly. There may be a way to modify the dimmer circuit
to solve this problem.
The music has to be playing from a CD. It cannot use MP3 or WAV files etc.. limiting you to how many tracks you can fit on one CD. Due to limitations in the programming language I had a lot of control over CD tracks.... Keeping track of milliseconds, pause and resume are not available with music files.
Due to slight differences in the dimmer circuit and light resistor a few circuits would not shut off completely or would take a noticeable amount of time to shut off. I had to add layers of tape over some sensors to reduce the amount of light they received from the screen. You need to have good control over the screen brightness and contrast of your monitor.
I got the dimmers on eBay for about $2 each.
Dimmer $2
Blue outlet boxes $0.33 per circuit (1.5 boxes at 22 cents ea.)
Outlets $0.35 ea (17 cents per circuit)
Light sensitive resistor $1 each (this will drop some if buying in large qty)
That's about $3.50 per circuit
That doesn't include wire, plugs and plastic storage boxes