07/04/06

How does it all Work?

 Simply we use a computer to play the music and turn on and off the lights in time with the music. A little more detailed explanation follows:

 Lights:

We have close to 20,000 lights in our display and add more every year. Our mega-tree has 3700 lights alone! We are trying to change to LED lighting to save on our electricity bill.

Controllers:

Controllers are the electrical devices that the lights plug into. The computer sends out a signal over a network cable which tells the controller what channel to turn on, off, dim or twinkle. My controllers are from D-Light which I bought in kit form and put together myself to save some money. We currently have 12-8 channel controllers for a total of 96 channels. Other companies that sell controllers are Light-O-Rama and Animated Lighting.

Cords:

Yep extension cord, you need a lot of those to connect the lights to the controllers and the controllers to power. We have close to a quarter mile of cords and we will be adding more as the size of the display increases.

Computer:

We use a older computer to run the show and a newer computer to program the sequences on. The computer sends the signals out to the controllers over a network cable via a USB or serial port via a special adapter that converts the digital signal to one the controller understands. The computer also outputs the sound to the FM transmitter so everyone can listen in there cars.

Software:

What you use to sequence the lights to the song, order the sequences into a show and set the time the show plays. The software I am currently using is from Light-O-Rama but I also have Spectrum software from D-Light which I will be using in the future. It takes about 3 to 4 hours a minute to sequence the lights to the music depending on the amount of channels and complexity of the song.

FM Transmitter:

This is what send the sound out to the car radios and keeps the neighbors happy. We got ours in a kit from Ramsey Electronics and since it is low power you don't need a licence to use it.

 So you still want a computerized Christmas Display?  Well if you do I suggest doing your homework first and getting all the info you can. A good place to start that has a wealth of information is Planet Christmas. From there you can find links to other sites, look at other peoples displays and chat with other enthusiasts. If you still need help or want someone else to set it up for you, contact us at Hazelhurst Holiday Displays and we can help you out.