Lights

Christmas Lights!

So many LED based Christmas lights
I’m not worried. Well, maybe a little. It’s been the oddest thing. Until this year we’ve been quite self-sufficient at the North Pole. When we needed raw material to build another line of toys we just went to the shelf and there was everything we could possibly need. I’ll admit I was on vacation in January but way too many elves stuck here in the workshop told me about all the corporate jets flying in for behind-closed-doors meetings with Santa. I just assumed the big man in red was working on some sort of grand surprise party for all us…
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Wireframe tips and tricks
It seems that these days everyone is going to the LED lights. They use so much less electricity and seem to last longer than the old-fashioned incandescent mini-lights. Unfortunately, for long time decorators changing can be costly. In many cases, there’s nothing wrong with incandescent decorations if you give them gentle, loving care. You can expect many more years of life. There are some tricks of the trade for quickly refurbishing those old wire frames that are lit in incandescent lights. The obvious fist thing to do is replace the bulbs on the wire frame. This can be fairly easily…
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LEDs are better?
One of my favorite aspects of our annual Christmas display is going outside when the crowds start to gather because I really enjoy catching the expressions on spectator’s faces. Most often people see me exit the house and start talking to me once I get to my “candy cane distribution point” across the street. The most popular question is “Wow, what’s your electricity bill like?” I should probably add an exclamation point based on how it’s often asked, but Mrs. Peck (my 5th grade English teacher) might object to that punctuation. My response is always “Actually, my bill has gone…
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Sequencing >1000 channels
I’ve been running around the world the last few months so I didn’t get to write this column in the last edition. Luckily I was able to tell the story about the video of my home Christmas display going viral on the Internet at re-PLUS thanks to Chuck Smith and his generosity, passion and willingness to bring together the serious Christmas decorators. This month I want to go over some of my ideas and issues with starting to program and sequence a 1,000+ channel show required for professional installations. I have been working on several large shows for the 2009…
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LOR’s CTB16PC light controller
It’s the Light-O-Rama PlanetChristmas Light Controller Board. aka: CTB16PC You’re ready to take the big step into computerizing your lights. There are almost too many options out there to choose from today. Typically you call a vendor, tell them what you want, pay a wad of hard earned money and soon everything is delivered to your door. Hook up some extension cords, plug the controllers into your computer and you’re good to go. For a 16 channel light controller board, the list pricing ranges from to $270 to $320. Quick math shows it breaks down to about $17-$20 per channel.…
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Over The Top decorating contest winner
My wife Heather and I recently got married in July of 2007. We purchased our house and last year was the first year we decorated our home. In years past I installed lights for others and had a pretty good size display at my parent’s house. Once I had my own house, I was free to go “wild” with the Christmas Lights. We are located in Hobbs, New Mexico. This is my first year with a computerized display. This year we have 155,000 lights on 224 Light-O-Rama channels. We have voice-overs in between each song. Many of the voice-overs remind…
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Performance Art
I have been fairly busy since writing the last article for PlanetChristmas. Soon after the first article I was involved with the installation of the multi media show that runs for the summer at Cedar Point Park in Sandusky, Ohio. Next I was involved with lighting the George Strait concert for the grand opening of the new Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas and on July 4th I provided part of the production for The Jonas Brothers, SheDaisy and host Glen Beck for America’s Freedom Festival in Provo, Utah. In the middle of all that I had the pleasure of spending…
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LEDs facts and fiction
When Chuck Smith asked me to put together a column for PlanetChristmas magazine that was a little more on the technical side of things I was nervous at first. Would average readers want something “more technical” or would this level of detail bore them? I agreed to give it a shot, but I wanted to present technical concepts in a way that everyone could understand. I hope I’ve achieved that goal. Let’s start off with a simple statement: LEDs will save your life. Really. They will also help you all but eliminate your electric bills, find the car keys, restore…
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How I became a pro Christmas decorator
When I sat down to write this column for PlanetChristmas magazine, I was trying to put everything that happened to me over the last four years in perspective. I went quickly from decorating my house for fun to making a living being an animation lighting professional. After thinking about my Internet video, the newspapers and press, the notoriety and everything else that happened, I realized I happened to upload the right video, at the right time and got lucky. That was just my start but there are many stories of people taking their hobby to the next level. I will…
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Take your Christmas display to the next level with DMX-512
When each of us purchased our favorite software and hardware systems to create an extreme computerized Christmas light display, we were given the opportunity to show the world, or at least the next door neighbors, our passion for Christmas decorating. We didn’t give a second thought about how the technology worked. We just loaded the software, took a controller out of the box, threw a light string on the floor and jumped in head first with the biggest ear-to-ear smile on our face since discovering presents under the Christmas tree as a kid. When Chuck Smith asked if I would…
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