My totally over-engineered, Star Wars themed holiday lights

[mztykal]

That is amazing!

 

[slugg]

So, have your neighbors threatened to kill you yet?

Seriously, though... what do you use to control that? It seems like the kind of thing that screams to be automated with a Raspberry Pi or something like that.

I did it in an overly difficult, unnecessarily complex way, just because I wanted to try out some ideas I came up with. What you're looking at is three Raspberry Pies, 36 Arduinos, and 3 Ubiquity WAPs. You could easily replace the whole thing with a single, commercial controller board (take a look at Light O Rama). But I specifically wanted to develop and test an idea I had for latency modeling (prediction and fault isolation). This application is obviously extremely sensitive to latency fluctuation, plus it was just cool, so I went for it. The whole thing was a giant experiment and learning opportunity.

 

[BoomerD]

I have two signs that are easily visible in person, but not in the video, that tell you to tune to 89.5 FM, which is where the music is locally broadcasted from my house using an FCC compliant FM transmitter.

OK, that's tolerable.

 

[WhiteNoise]

that is NOT a Christmas song tho. But good job.

 

[ViRGE]

Holy smokes! Well done, Slugg.

 

[FeuerFrei]

I'm impressed. Facebook'd it.
I'm partial to gradients, slow fades, pulsating. Anything imitating a VU meter.

"Star Wars" though .... *yawn*.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I did it in an overly difficult, unnecessarily complex way, just because I wanted to try out some ideas I came up with. What you're looking at is three Raspberry Pies, 36 Arduinos, and 3 Ubiquity WAPs. You could easily replace the whole thing with a single, commercial controller board (take a look at Light O Rama). But I specifically wanted to develop and test an idea I had for latency modeling (prediction and fault isolation). This application is obviously extremely sensitive to latency fluctuation, plus it was just cool, so I went for it. The whole thing was a giant experiment and learning opportunity.

Honestly that's better than a commercial solution since it's not proprietary and virtually limitless expandability and will be something that you can add/change down the line with pretty much zero limitations or having to worry about stuff being discontinued.

 

[gorcorps]

Doubtful... they haven't invented a powerful enough zoom lens yet.

She'll probably need a macro lens. Poor guy

 

[slugg]

that is NOT a Christmas song tho. But good job.

I'm impressed. Facebook'd it.
I'm partial to gradients, slow fades, pulsating. Anything imitating a VU meter.

"Star Wars" though .... *yawn*.

In one of the earlier posts, you'll see that we also did Frosty The Snowman.

And we literally did have a VU meter in Frosty. It applies a band pass and inverse Fourier transform to the music, maps the amplitudes to vertically oriented lights on the house, and applies a gradient to it.

 

[renz20003]

This sums it up well:

 

[WhiteNoise]

I would have no idea how to do this lol. I'm pretty happy with myself for just hanging lights around the roof line!

 

[brianmanahan]

looks awesome but i don't want to have a seizure so i'm not gonna watch the whole thing

 

[Red Squirrel]

As a side note, does this just go on in a loop, or is it more something that you show people every now and then, and have a more subtle pattern? It personally would not really bother me but I know a lot of people like to make a fuss about silly stuff so could see them be annoyed. Those type of people are the reason we can't have nice things and why we have ridiculous bylaws about what we can't do on our own property.

 

[slugg]

As a side note, does this just go on in a loop, or is it more something that you show people every now and then, and have a more subtle pattern? It personally would not really bother me but I know a lot of people like to make a fuss about silly stuff so could see them be annoyed. Those type of people are the reason we can't have nice things and why we have ridiculous bylaws about what we can't do on our own property.

I wrote a little scheduler daemon that automated the schedule of the show.

Show times run between 6 PM and 9 PM Sunday through Thursday, and 6 to 10 on Friday and Saturday. During show times, a one minute intermission plays before Frosty and a 1.5 minute intermission plays before Star Wars. During this time, only a small subset of the lights are turned on; they are are 20% brightness and have a simple gradient/chase animation. A VU meter is animated on some of the house, too, to reflect the background music. One of the "tune to 89.5" signs blinks slowly, but very brightly during intermissions. During intermissions, we announce the show times, the next song, and ask you to stay to one side of the road to allow traffic to flow through freely, and to keep your radio at a reasonable volume. This whole thing loops until the show schedule is over.

For one hour before the show starts (while the sun is on its way down), we have a generic sequence that is almost identical to the Frosty intermission, except it doesn't say that Frosty is next; it just mentions that we have Frosty and Star Wars: The Light Awakens. We play this same sequence for thirty minutes after the last show so that stragglers know when to come back.

For one hour before the pre-show sequence, we broadcast the same audio, but the lights are off. We do the same for half an hour after the post-show sequence.

As far as those people you've mentioned, my neighbors have been incredibly supportive. They truly love it. The guy directly across the street from me even lets people park in his driveway to watch, just because he wants them to enjoy it. The guy next to me got on my roof and helped me mount some of my lights, which is awesome because I'm afraid of heights and a big wimp in that area. Another neighbor let me run wires and props through her yard (which I later removed, due to technical complications).

People have been coming from over an hour away to see it. It's kind of crazy!

 

[Paladin3]

Sweet display!!!

 

[disappoint]

Very nice, I would have guessed fewer Arduinos than 36 and fewer Raspberry Pis than 3 because it didn't seem like a whole lot of processing power is needed for that many LEDs if you use addressable RGB LED strips but then again I haven't wrapped the entire front of my house with them, just the kitchen window, and I don't have it synced to music nor VU metered, just LEDs in a chase sequence.

 

[slugg]

Very nice, I would have guessed fewer Arduinos than 36 and fewer Raspberry Pis than 3 because it didn't seem like a whole lot of processing power is needed for that many LEDs if you use addressable RGB LED strips but then again I haven't wrapped the entire front of my house with them, just the kitchen window, and I don't have it synced to music nor VU metered, just LEDs in a chase sequence.

You are correct. Did I mention that they're over-engineered?

 

[CraKaJaX]

thats awesome. I would probably kill you if I lived across from you..but its awesome.

LMAO. This is so true.

Awesome work OP.

 

[soulcougher73]

Nice work Slugg. Arent you in KS somewhere?

 

[slugg]

Nice work Slugg. Arent you in KS somewhere?

Thanks! But no, I'm in Tampa, FL.

 

[zinfamous]

Bumping this because I was banned when you posted it.

Amazing, OP!

One thing I was thinking when you posted this--I hope next year you are able to add some spotlights to the roof that can blast straight up in the air....and motorize and choreograph those things to the rest of the show. Would the FAA get involved?

 

[Iron Woode]

Now do it using "Relax" by Frankie goes to Hollywood.

I promise it'll go viral on YouTube, just throw a couple reindeer humping on the roof.

he needs to do Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus.

 

[Iron Woode]

Bumping this because I was banned when you posted it.

wait, what?

 

[sdifox]

You need fog cannons. And drones with leds.

 

[shabby]

What type of led's are you using? Those 5050 smd led strips from ebay will do?