Quick
facts about the
PlanetChristmas
display:
The display is
again located at
The Factory at Franklin
for 2009. Lots of computer controlled
snowflakes hanging from the ceiling all around the
mall. Most of the wireframe figures are
outside along Liberty Pike with different computer
control display areas. Watch for more details.
The lights should be on the day after Thanksgiving.
Any idea how
many people have seen the PlanetChristmas
display in 2009?
Not yet!
__________
 |
|
1972: An
early decorating project by Chuck |
Information from the 2006
PlanetChristmas display.
How many lights were there for 2006?
Thousands of miniature Christmas lights controlled by 397 individual
circuits requiring miles of wire to connect everything, 105 strobe
lights, Santa and Rudolph water skiing, Santa riding his Harley, Santa
flying in a plane, elves building a snowman, Santa in a helicopter,
animated reindeer, teddy bear on a trampoline, seals batting presents,
over 120 individually controlled snowflakes... plus a whole lot more.
The entire display is suspended from the steel beams or attached to
overhead handrails.
How many computer zones were there this
year? At the corner of
Franklin Road and Liberty Pike are 54 bushes controlled by a computer.
Look up at the water tower and the chasing reindeer are controlled by
another computer. Step inside the main entrance of the Factory at
Franklin and look straight up from the information desk. The
PlanetChristmas sign is computer controlled. Go down each of the
short hallways and it's another computer controlled area. Break
out into the large Commons Area and it's a separate computer controlled
area. Finally, walk down the long hallway with all the snowflakes
and it's the last computer controlled area.
How long did it take to put the lights up
in 2006? Work started the week before Halloween.
Lot's of time was spent on a scissor and knuckle lifts. Luckily
the Factory at Franklin has recently been remodeled and access to
electricity was easy. The lights went on the day after
Thanksgiving.
Do you really have a radio station,
too? Yep!
On the Internet.
Click here
for the details of how to listen. The Christmas
CD's I've bought over the years have been "ripped" and converted to
MP3's for playing at the display site. The
OTSJuke
jukebox program shuffles the >900 selections, inserting PlanetChristmas
commercials and plays almost 60 hours of music before it repeats.
Are you running out off places
to put lights? Not since the display has
moved. The Factory is huge and has plenty of potential!
Do you take the lights down after
Christmas? Christmas specific fixtures will go dark
on December 26, but everything else will stay lit through January.
Are you Santa Claus?
Let's just say I'm very close to the big man when he's around the house.
We happen to wear the same size clothes. The odd thing we have
never met face-to-face.
How does it work?
Check the Technical Specifications and Schematic pages. I usually just
say the computer does everything.
How much is the electric bill?
I anticipate this year's bill for
the Factory to increase about $130. If you watch the display carefully,
never are all of the lights on at the same time... it just
looks that way because there are so many and they're blinking. If
they were all on, the display would draw 210 amps of current...
equal to about eighteen hair dryers working at the same time.
Does the electric company give you a
volume discount? I wish!
Why do you put up all those lights?
Nothing in the world beats the twinkle in the eye of a five
year old watching the all the lights. This is our gift to the
community.
What does your wife
do to help? Marla still offers
advice after everything is up and going. "Chuck,
that tree over there needs some more lights."
__________
Quick facts about the
2005 display:
See the link to the left. I took the
year off and went to Disneyworld!
__________
Quick facts about the
2004 display:
Slightly more than 250,000 lights controlled by
640 computer circuits. Lights came on
Thanksgiving evening at 5:00pm and went until
Christmas night.
Any
idea how many people drive by the
PlanetChristmas
display in 2004?
The traffic control volunteers counted each
and every car, limo, trolley and bus that came to
see the PlanetChristmas display for 2004.
How many lights were
there for 2004? 251,184
miniature Christmas lights controlled by 640
individual circuits requiring 12.1 miles of wire to
connect everything, 180 strobe lights, Santa and
Rudolph water skiing, Santa, Rudolph and a snowman
playing golf, Santa riding his Harley, Santa flying
in a plane, elves building a snowman, Santa in a
helicopter, a four horse carousel, gingerbread
house, 16 animated reindeer, teddy bear on a
trampoline, an elf firing presents out of a cannon
and four frogs... plus a whole lot more. The
entire display wraps around the pond.
How long did it take
to put the lights up in 2004? On
November 14, 2003, several volunteers arrived at my
house to transport the display to it's new location.
The lights officially switched on Thanksgiving night
at an informal ceremony. I had many volunteers
to help rollout the display as well as hook
everything to the computer. There were only a
couple of days when it was too wet to work outside.
Luckily, most of the other days had temperatures in
the 40-60 degree range. The older I get,
the harder it is to get excited about going outside
in 25 degree weather to put up Christmas lights.
Do you really
have a radio station, too?
I use a micro-powered
radio station broadcasting on 98.7 FM
stereo broadcast on site. The music heard
through the outdoor speakers is also going out over
the radio station 24 hours a day between
Thanksgiving and Christmas. We are also
sponsored by The Fish FM 94.1 and they have provided
much of the music and voiceovers while also
broadcasting Christmas music 24x7 from their real
radio station in Nashville. The Christmas CD's
I've bought over the years have been "ripped" and
converted to MP3's for playing at the display site.
The
OTSJuke jukebox program shuffles the >900
selections, inserting PlanetChristmas commercials
and plays almost 60 hours of music before it
repeats. When you're close to the house, turn
up your heater, tune in the radio, find a good place
to stop your car and enjoy the light show.
Are you
running out off places to put lights?
Not since the display has moved. The church
sits on over 40 acres of land.
Do you take the
lights down after Christmas?
Definitely. The last flashing for the lights is
Christmas night. I'm usually out the next day
starting to disconnect stuff. It takes four
full days to tear everything down and another three
days to pack and store everything in the garage and
attic.
Are you Santa Claus?
Let's just say I'm very close to the big man
when he's around the house. We happen to wear the
same size clothes. The odd thing we have never
met face-to-face.
How does it work?
Check the
Technical Specifications and Schematic pages.
I usually just say the computer does everything.
How much is the
electric bill?
I anticipate this
year's bill for the church to increase about $130.
If you watch the display carefully, never are
all of the lights on at the same time... it
just looks that way because there are so many and
they're blinking. If they were all on, the
display would draw 210 amps of current... equal to
about eighteen hair dryers working at the same time.
Does the electric
company give you a volume discount? I
wish!
Why do you put up all
those lights? Nothing in the world
beats the twinkle in the eye of a five year old
watching the all the lights. This is our gift
to the community.
What kind of computer
do you use? For 20043 I'm
sporting a 2.6GHz Pentium with 1GB of RAM. The
program is written in ACL and runs with Animated
Lighting hardware under Windows XP.
What does your wife
do to help? Marla still offers
advice after everything is up and going. "Chuck,
that tree over there needs some more lights."
__________
FAQ's from 2003 and
earlier
Any idea how many
people drive by the PlanetChristmas
display in 2003?
The traffic control volunteers counted each
and every car, limo, trolley and bus that came to
see the PlanetChristmas display for 2003. As
of December 22, 2003, the vehicle count crossed
10,000. A conservative guess is just over
50,000 people will see the display for 2003!
How many lights were
there for 2003? 201,346
miniature Christmas lights controlled by 540
individual circuits requiring 10.1 miles of wire to
connect everything, 180 strobe lights, Santa and
Rudolph water skiing, Santa, Rudolph and a snowman
playing golf, Santa riding his Harley, Santa flying
in a plane, elves building a snowman, Santa in a
helicopter, a four horse carousel, gingerbread
house, 16 animated reindeer, teddy bear on a
trampoline, an elf firing presents out of a cannon
and four frogs... plus a whole lot more. The
entire display is 200 feet long and broken into four
scenes: Santa at the beach, Toyland, North Pole and
the Nativity.
Why did you move the
display to another location for 2003?
The traffic generated by the display was
becoming a major problem for the neighborhood.
I approached The People's Church, less than half a
mile from my house to see if they might be
interested in hosting the display. Not only
were they interested in hosting it and making the
display a yearly tradition, but they would provide
volunteers to help set everything up as well as man
critical traffic control points on the church
property. Deciding to move the display ended
up being very easy.
How long did it take
to put the lights up in 2003? On
November 14, 2003, several volunteers arrived at my
house to transport the display to it's new location.
The lights officially switched on November 26, 2003
at a formal ceremony. I had many volunteers to
help rollout the display as well as hook everything
to the computer. There were only a couple of
days when it was too wet to work outside.
Luckily, most of the other days had temperatures in
the 40-60 degree range. The older I get,
the harder it is to get excited about going outside
in 25 degree weather to put up Christmas lights.
Do you really
have a radio station, too?
I use a micro-powered
radio station broadcasting on 98.7 FM
stereo broadcast on site. The music heard
through the outdoor speakers is also going out over
the radio station 24 hours a day between
Thanksgiving and Christmas. We are also
sponsored by The Fish FM 94.1 and they have provided
much of the music and voiceovers while also
broadcasting Christmas music 24x7 from their real
radio station in Nashville. The Christmas CD's
I've bought over the years have been "ripped" and
converted to MP3's for playing at the display site.
The
OTSJuke jukebox program shuffles the >900
selections, inserting PlanetChristmas commercials
and plays almost 60 hours of music before it
repeats. When you're close to the house, turn
up your heater, tune in the radio, find a good place
to stop your car and enjoy the light show.
Are you
running out off places to put lights?
Not since the display has moved. The church
sits on over 40 acres of land.
Do you take the
lights down after Christmas?
Definitely. The last flashing for the lights is
Christmas night. I'm usually out the next day
starting to disconnect stuff. It takes four
full days to tear everything down and another three
days to pack and store everything in the garage and
attic.
Are you Santa Claus?
Let's just say I'm very close to the big man
when he's around the house. We happen to wear the
same size clothes. The odd thing we have never
met face-to-face.
How does it work?
I usually just say the computer does everything.
How much is your
electric bill?
I anticipate this
year's bill for the church to increase about $100.
If you watch the display carefully, never are
all of the lights on at the same time... it
just looks that way because there are so many and
they're blinking. If they were all on, the
display would draw 140 amps of current... equal to
about twelve hair dryers working at the same time.
Does the electric
company give you a volume discount? I
wish!
Why do you put up all
those lights? Nothing in the world
beats the twinkle in the eye of a five year old
watching the all the lights. This is our gift
to the community.
What kind of computer
do you use?
For 2003 I'm sporting a 450MHz Pentium with 256MB of
RAM. The program is written in
PowerBASIC and runs on
Windows 2000 in a DOS box... which really means
I only use about 1MB of the RAM available. The vast
majority of the time, the computer is simply in a
do-nothing loop. In reality, an 8086 based computer
(like the original IBM PC) is all the horsepower
needed to drive the display. Many years ago the
light show was run from an Apple IIe... until I
burned out the power supply and couldn't get another
one easily.
What does your wife
do to help? Marla offers advice after
everything is up and going. "Chuck, that tree over
there needs some more lights."
What do your
neighbors think of the lack of traffic at your house
this year? As the final trailer of
the light display was pulling away from my house
November 14, the neighbor directly across the street
came over and confirmed the display was really
moving. When I said yes, he was positively
giddy with excitement. Other neighbors have
already said the miss the display.
__________
FAQ's from 2002 and
earlier
How many lights were
there for 2002? 134,055
miniature Christmas lights controlled by 548
individual circuits requiring 7.8 miles of wire to
connect everything, 138 strobe lights, one 8' teddy
bear, Santa and Rudolph water skiing, Santa, Rudolph
and a snowman playing golf, Santa riding his Harley,
Santa flying in a plane, elves building a snowman,
Santa in a helicopter, a four horse carousel,
gingerbread house, eight reindeer, two waving
snowmen and four frogs.
How long did it take
to put the lights up in 2002? I got
everything put outside and hooked into the computer
in less than nine days... it used to take
considerably longer (see the following questions.)
Everything is even more modular than years past so
it can go together and come apart quickly.
The older I get, the harder it is to get excited
about going outside in 25 degree weather to put up
Christmas lights.
Do you really
have a radio station, too?
I use a micro-powered
radio station broadcasting on 98.7 FM
stereo. The music heard through the outdoor
speakers is also going out over the radio station 24
hours a day between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The Christmas CD's I've bought over the years have
been "ripped" and converted to MP3's. The
OTSJuke jukebox program shuffles the >900
selections, inserting PlanetChristmas commercials
and plays almost 60 hours of music before it
repeats. When you're close to the house, turn
up your heater, tune in the radio, find a good place
to stop your car and enjoy the light show.
Are you
running out off places to put lights?
I'll admit I maxed out my current location in 1999.
Luckily the trees and bushes around my house grew so
I had more surface area for the lights. In
2002, if you look carefully, there are very lights
on the house or bushes. Almost everything is
stand-alone and doesn't need a house to hang it on.
Do you take the
lights down after Christmas?
Definitely. The last flashing for the lights is
Christmas night. I'm usually out the next day
starting to disconnect stuff. It takes two
full days to tear everything down and another three
days to pack and store everything in the garage and
attic.
Are you Santa Claus?
Let's just say I'm very close to the big man
when he's around the house. We happen to wear the
same size clothes.
How does it work? I
usually just say the computer does everything.
How much is your
electric bill?
I anticipate this
year's bill to be about $56. If you watch the
display carefully, never are all of the lights
on at the same time... it just looks that
way because there are so many and they're blinking.
If they were all on, the display would draw
110 amps of current... equal to about ten hair
dryers working at the same time.
Does the electric
company give you a volume discount? I wish!
Why do you put up all
those lights? I actually enjoy a
project that I'm totally in-charge of.
If something goes right or wrong, I'm the only one
that can be praised or blamed. In reality,
nothing in the world beats the twinkle in the eye of
a five year old watching the all the lights.
What kind of computer
do you use?
For 2002 I'm sporting a 450MHz Pentium with 256MB of
RAM. The program is written in
PowerBASIC and runs on
Windows 2000 in a DOS box... which really means
I only use about 1MB of the RAM available. The vast
majority of the time, the computer is simply in a
do-nothing loop. In reality, an 8086 based computer
(like the original IBM PC) is all the horsepower
needed to drive the display. Many years ago the
light show was run from an Apple IIe... until I
burned out the power supply and couldn't get another
one easily.
What does your wife
do to help? Marla offers advice after
everything is up and going. "Chuck, that thing over
there needs some more lights."
What do your
neighbors think of all the traffic?
They get pretty quiet a week before Christmas when
spectators and traffic start getting real
thick around the house. .. but they do love the
lights. I actually scaled back the lights in
2000 to prevent so much traffic from being generated
in the area... it didn't work and the lights started
to grow again in 2001.
__________
How many lights were
there for 2001? 96,790
miniature Christmas lights, 7.2 miles of wire to
connect everything, 110 strobe lights, three 8'
inflatable snowmen, one 8' inflatable Santa Claus,
Santa in a helicopter, a four horse carousel,
gingerbread house, 33 reindeer, two crying snowmen,
all handled by 425 computer controlled circuits.
How many lights were
there for 2000? 53,205
miniature Christmas lights, 2.1 miles of wire to
connect everything, 192 computer controlled circuits
and two X-10 circuits.
How many lights were
there in 1999? 143,268
miniature Christmas lights, over 350 strobe lights,
6.4 miles of wire to connect everything, 540
computer controlled circuits and two X-10 circuits.
Those were the good old days.
How long did it take
to put the lights up in 2001? I got
everything put outside and hooked into the computer
in less than four days... it used to take
considerably longer (see the following questions.)
Everything is even more modular than years past so
it can go together and come apart quickly.
The older I get, the harder it is to get excited
about going outside in 25 degree weather to put up
Christmas lights.
How long did it take
to put the lights up before 2000?
Putting the lights up outside of the house is
actually the easy part. That year I started on
Halloween... and I also took a three weeks of
vacation in November so that everything could be
turned on Thanksgiving day. Most of the real
work starts much earlier in the year... building
wiring harnesses between the computer and the
lights, refurbishing light strings from the previous
year, building new light figures, etc. I
actually started doing some preliminary work in
February. Serious work began in the middle of June.
Everything is very modular so it can go together and
come apart quickly.
How did you get
started doing this? In college,
I stumbled onto an old coffee vending machine (put
in a quarter, a cup drops down, then a squirt of
water, shot of coffee grounds, a little sugar and a
touch of cream.) It used a mechanical timer to
trigger everything to make a cup of coffee. I
removed the coffee making brain and relays,
"reprogrammed" the mechanical cams and connected it
to five different strings of Christmas lights in
front of my parent's house to make the bushes look
like they were chasing each other in slow motion
(this was 1973.) People talked about it from
all over. In 1984, I used an 8 circuit
dedicated computer board and connected it to solid
state relays to control 4 vertical and 4 horizontal
strands on a big Christmas tree in my front yard...
people would stop their cars in front of the house
watching the lights dance on the tree... and I knew
I was onto something. The next year I used a
retired Apple II and had 16 circuits to control.
In 1990, the Apple blew out it's power supply and I
shifted to a PC clone... and it's been growing each
year. Now it's become a family tradition
for a lot of people in the middle Tennessee area.
I couldn't be more proud!
Are you going to do
this again next year?
2002 is the last year for the huge display. Watch this space for
future plans!
