| Frequently asked questions |
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How many lights are you using? There are just a few more than 7000 lights in the display; most are Target energy-saving minilights, though the front-porch posts are wrapped with standard LED strings. While the show started in 2009 without lights around the bannister, there is hope that there will be about 400 more LEDs in frames there before the New Year. There are nine household-voltage SSR controllers and a single low-voltage controller, representing a total potential of 52 channels, though not all are in service. How much extra does the electricity cost? In 2008 it worked out to less than $100. Mostly the lights are blinking or off in a synchronized show, which cuts down on the electricity being used. How much did it cost for you to do this? I never kept track (afraid to know). Since Christmas light computerization and sequencing has been my primary hobby since December 2007, I know I’ve spent less than I would have playing a year of golf or even going skiing during the winter. As one of my fellow DIY Christmas decorations colleagues points out, probably the most expensive aspect of the show is one you wouldn’t think about: the extension cords. How long does it take to sequence a song? How long is a piece of string? I keep tinkering with the damn things. ... First pass on a two-minute song is usually about three or four hours. When I get brain freeze I walk away. I’ll come back a couple of days later and fiddle with it for another hour or so and it’s probably very close to what you see at that point, though, as I said, they’re one of those things that you can tinker with and tinker with. So, is this all done with that home electrical control system X10? No, X10 isn’t fast enough to keep up with the music; it can react about once every two seconds, whereas Vixen breaks down the songs into 50-millisecond chunks. The technology here is called DMX-512, which was developed for the entertainment industry (think: rock concert) Previous to the intervention of a hobbyist/inventor named Robert Jordan, DMX was too expensive for a Christmas lights hobbyist to use (DMX controllers that interface to computers cost $150-$200). But RJ designed an inexpensive USB-DMX interface and the rest is history. What happened to some of the 2008 technology, like the Grinch and its dimmer? There were a number of technical problems with the 2008 show, most of which I determined, stemmed from the spoke-and-wheel topology inherent with a controller like the Grinch (unlike a consolidated controller/SSR, where the field point-of-failure is the device itself, in a Grinch environment, there are three things that can go wrong: the controller, the cable between the controller and the SSR and the SSR). In counting things up, I realized that without expanding the show, I could use all Lynx DMX SSR4 controllers if I just built three more and pushed a couple of them up to 1 amp per channel rather than a fraction of an amp per channel I used in 2008. So, the Grinch, its dimmer and the SSRoz controllers went into storage. I may sell them. Who is the voice announcing the songs on the radio? St. Nicholas, just like he says. |