It's About Time! 

Welcome to your February 2006 edition of the PlanetChristmas newsletter!  It is published every month and covers relative topics for the Christmas decorating enthusiast.   

Thinking About Computerizing Your Display for 2006? 

Once a computerized light display has been seen up close, all anyone can say is WOW!  That display becomes a yearly destination for families and creates those lifelong memories we love to talk about.  If you’re thinking seriously about computerizing your display, let’s walk through what you’re going to experience. 

Do you really have enough of a display to computerize?  Think about what you did for Christmas 2005.  If there were thousands of lights, you probably had several extension cords running to different plugs around the house.  Each extension cord powered a section of your display.  Now visualize all those cords coming to one spot and there’s a simple light switch connected to each cord.  You start flicking the switches any way you want and at any time, maybe even to the beat of your favorite Christmas tune.  If there are eight light switches, there are 256 combinations of on-off position.  Now replace the light switches with dimmer switches and think of the possibilities.  WOW!  Is your mind in overdrive?  Yep, you need to computerize.   

I’ve been doing computerized displays for over 20 years.  If you start small, 8-16 computer controlled light channels, and grow a little each year, you can create an amazing display.  If you decide to build a 200 channel masterpiece the first year, you’re destined for an immense amount of frustration.  Crawl, walk, run is a good mantra to continually repeat in your mind. 

Now imagine eight bushes across the front of your house and a man-made tree of lights hung off the flag pole and split into eight sections.  If each bush is a separate electrical circuit controlled by a computer channel, image those bushes chasing back and forth 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.  Think of your eight channel man-made tree of lights spinning.  Now image all this chasing and spinning is choreographed to music.  Imagination is your only limitation.  Yep, you definitely need to computerize. 

But, let's be brutally honest what you are up against when computerizing your display:

The cons to a computerized display include the initial costs of purchasing the light controllers, extra extension cords to connect everything and more time to plan and setup your display.  Don’t forget about the considerable effort invested in creating the unique program to blink the lights like you want.  You might want to also check the bylaws of your neighborhood association to make sure there are no limitations on Christmas displays.   

The pros to a computerized display include a much lower electric bill since the lights are flashing instead of being on all the time.  There’s also a pretty good chance of being on the evening news (in a good way) sometime during the Christmas season. 

In the early days when creating my computerized display, I built all the required computer switches and wrote the software to control everything.  I was averaging $3-4 per channel in lighting control costs and untold hours doing the computer programming, but it was truly a labor of love.  I actually enjoyed this until my display exceeded 64 channels and I realized too much time was being spent just maintaining this homebrew electrical setup.  I switched to commercial grade solid state relays to control the lights and my costs went up to a little more than $20 a channel but electrical maintenance issues disappeared.  I was still writing my own controlling software and when something broke, I was the only one that knew how to fix things, which I still can’t decide is good or bad.  That display grew to over 600 computer controlled channels.  Thank goodness I was an electrical engineer and could keep this monster working all the time. 

The computer control world began changing in the late ‘90’s when Drew Hickman started selling something called Dasher.  This was a kit that eliminated much of the black magic of computerizing your lights and created a way for the non-computer-geeks to have dynamic displays.  Before you start searching for Dasher on the Internet, it has faded away. There are still Dasher users out there today and very happy with the product.

At PLUS2003, Animated Lighting and Light-O-Rama (these are in alphabetical order) were selling end-user products that really changed the computerized lighting world.  For around $15/channel, you could just plug your Christmas lights into a control box, connect it to the serial port of your computer, program the sequence of the lights with a graphical program and you were set.  At PLUS 2005, both these companies had upgraded their products and a new company called D-Light arrived allowing you to build the control boards yourself if you weren’t afraid of a soldering iron.  The vendors are promising more enhancements and surprises in 2006.  I can’t wait. 

Why is any of this information important in February?  Most people get so excited when they finally decide to computerize they end up buying too much and planning too little.  Immense frustration is the result. 

As luck would have it, most of the lighting control vendors have sales this time of year.  Consider buying a small configuration of controller and software and spend some time over the next few months wrapping your head around what can be done.  The concepts are easy to understand, but it takes patience from the beginning to learn how to implement all that stuff your mind can already envision.  Figuring out the difference between a flash, fade, ramp and twinkle is a lot easier now than late in November. 

Here’s what you should do.  Buy an 8-16 channel controller and software from one of the vendors.  Find 8-16 strings of 100 mini-lights, but keep each string bundled.  Plug each string into a channel of the controller and arrange the strings sequentially in a circle on a table or the floor.  Close to the lights, connect the controller to a serial port on your computer, load the software and start experimenting.  Get those 8-16 strings of lights in a circle spinning, dimming, flashing and anything else you can think of.  Then synchronize those same lights to a very short Christmas tune.  Make those 8-16 strings really dance.  This won’t happen overnight.  It will take you several weeks to learn the basics of the control program and months to master the nuances.  The key is to do your learning inside where it’s comfortable and there’s no pressure to turn on the final display.  Once you feel comfortable with your capabilities, start planning for your real Christmas 2006 display.  Remember: crawl, walk, run is the mantra.  If you get stuck and need advice, get into the PlanetChristmas chatroom. 

• Animated Lighting

• Light-O-Rama

• D-Light

Tip of the Month 

Want to create your own wireframe or plywood cutout design but don’t know how to get from a little sheet of paper to something that’s ten feet tall?  The real low-tech way is to make a grid of one inch squares on top of your drawing to be enlarged.  Then on a big board, create a grid of one foot squares.  Using your eyeball and a pencil, manually transfer what’s in the one inch square to the corresponding one foot square.  It’s not the perfect method but at least your big drawing will look similar to your small drawing.  From that point, you can bend wire for a wireframe or use a jigsaw if it’s a plywood cutout. 

There are three high-tech ways to get the big image on a wall so you can trace it. 

	Remember those opaque projectors from your childhood?  Put it on a picture and it’s projected on to the wall.  New ones are available for less then $50 from larger craft stores or try eBay.
	Overhead projectors are still in use at many schools today.  Find the pattern you want to enlarge and transfer it to  a transparent sheet via a copier or your computer printer.  New overhead projectors cost several hundred dollars and can be found in most office supply stores.  eBay is another source for a used one.  You might even check with your office manager to see if an old one is stashed away in a closet somewhere.
	If you are really high tech, create the drawing you want enlarged, scan it into your computer and enlarge it by using an LCD projector.  These units start around $700 and go up and up and up in price.  Find them in office supply stores or the back of computer magazines.

What’s New at PlanetChristmas?

The www.PlanetChristmas.com website is constantly being updated.  Wonder around.  You’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn.

Checked the Chatroom Lately? 

The PlanetChristmas chatroom is a gold mine of information!  If you haven’t found it yet, go to http://www.planetchristmas.com/talk.htm and be sure to check the Mini-Plus2006 forum.  Don't forget you can also create your very own PlanetChristmas blog as well as instant message with other enthusiasts in the PlanetChristmas community.

Help us Grow for PLUS2007! 

If you attended either of our major PlanetChristmas Lights Up Symposium (PLUS) events, you know what a great time it is.  Not only is there so much being taught by the experts, but you learn even more networking and sharing information with other enthusiasts. 

The key to success for PLUS2007 is the continued growth of the PlanetChristmas community.  Check the PlanetChristmas chatroom for the possibility of a local mini-PLUS in your area during 2006 while waiting for PLUS2007. 

I’m currently looking for someone with a very strong Public Relations background willing to help with the planning of PLUS2007.  If you’re up to the task, please send me an email at csmith@planetchristmas.com

Newsletter Suggestion? 

Have a suggestion for a main topic or want to write an article for a future PlanetChristmas newsletter?  Send us an email: 

newsletter@planetchristmas.com!  If you know someone that really should subscribe to your newsletter, send them to http://www.planetchristmas.com/Newsletters.htm 

Next time: look forward to more Christmas decorating tips. 

Chuck Smith of PlanetChristmas