Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the
Speaker 1: tech are you. It's the holiday season, That's all I'm
Speaker 1: allowed to sing by law, But in my neck of
Speaker 1: the woods that means an awful lot of my neighbors
Speaker 1: have gone over the top with various holiday displays. Now
Speaker 1: predominantly the holiday celebrated in my neck of the woods
Speaker 1: is Christmas, And for simplicity's sake, I'll be talking a
Speaker 1: lot about Christmas lights in this episode. But keep in
Speaker 1: mind that, you know, obviously people do light shows for
Speaker 1: all sorts of different holidays, but just for simplicity's sake,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say Christmas lights because that's what the
Speaker 1: hobby is largely centered around. And today I really wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about how people who create those really spectacular
Speaker 1: light displays, the kind that often are coordinated with music,
Speaker 1: how they pull that off. And it takes an awful
Speaker 1: lot of technology. More than that, this technology evolves an
Speaker 1: incredible pace. The way that people can do this now
Speaker 1: is far more sophisticated than what was done even just
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. So the other thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind is if you're listening to this episode
Speaker 1: after twenty twenty four, there's going to be some dated
Speaker 1: stuff in here. That's kind of how tech works, and
Speaker 1: it's really sophisticated, both from a hardware and a software
Speaker 1: side of things. And yeah, we're going to really dive
Speaker 1: into this, but on a high level because, as it
Speaker 1: turns out, if you really really want to get into
Speaker 1: this stuff, it's going to take some time on your
Speaker 1: part to really get acquainted with all the nuances. If
Speaker 1: you want a glimpse at how advanced this tech is,
Speaker 1: you should look up Christmas lights shows on YouTube. Some
Speaker 1: of those displays are truly dropping, and of course some
Speaker 1: people do them for Halloween as well. There's a real
Speaker 1: bustling community of hobbyists on YouTube with tutorials and product
Speaker 1: reviews for people in the space. I'll be talking about
Speaker 1: a few different YouTube channels. For example, Listen to lights
Speaker 1: or how to Pixel. That's the number two, so how
Speaker 1: to Pixel. They can give you a lot of information
Speaker 1: on the technology, the hobby, how to get started and
Speaker 1: want to watch out for. But before we go any further,
Speaker 1: let's talk about old school Christmas lights because when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, the Christmas lights I had they could
Speaker 1: not do the things that we're seeing these displays do.
Speaker 1: So in ye olden days of electric Christmas lights, you
Speaker 1: would buy a string of lights that were wired in series. Now,
Speaker 1: when we talk about circuits, one way that you can
Speaker 1: classify simple circuits is by whether they're wired in series
Speaker 1: or in parallel. Here's a quick refresher course on that
Speaker 1: in case it's been a while since you've learned about
Speaker 1: this in science class. So let's start with a power source.
Speaker 1: The power source provides voltage. This is akin to pressure
Speaker 1: in the system that's using water or air. That's how
Speaker 1: much oomph is behind the current. So the higher the voltage,
Speaker 1: the greater the pressure behind the push of electricity. So
Speaker 1: a battery typically has you know, fairly low voltage, like
Speaker 1: a like a little portable battery. It's something you would
Speaker 1: put in one of your handheld devices. So those are
Speaker 1: usually around one and a half volts. The outlet in
Speaker 1: your typical house, at least here in the United States,
Speaker 1: provides around one hundred and twenty volts of pressure. Now
Speaker 1: I say in the United States because in other places
Speaker 1: like say the United Kingdom, it's different. The UK household
Speaker 1: outlet goes to two hundred and thirty volts. By the way,
Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons why it's important to
Speaker 1: use a converter when connecting to outlets in other countries,
Speaker 1: because you do not want to fry your gear anyway.
Speaker 1: This pressure is what pushes electricity through a circuit, which
Speaker 1: you can think of ultimately as a big old loop.
Speaker 1: That's what a circuit is. It's just a loop. The
Speaker 1: path goes from one terminal of your power supply and
Speaker 1: ultimately comes back to connect at a different terminal of
Speaker 1: that same power supply, and this makes a complete circuit. Now,
Speaker 1: if it were just a path, that wouldn't be very useful, right,
Speaker 1: if it was just a loop of wire, I mean
Speaker 1: it would be useful if you wanted to generate heat,
Speaker 1: because the circuit would start to get really hot and
Speaker 1: then eventually melt or catch fire. Then you would be
Speaker 1: pretty much set because the resistance of the pathway, the
Speaker 1: electrical resistance, would mean that some of that electrical energy
Speaker 1: would be transformed into heat, and then if left long enough,
Speaker 1: it'll heat up enough to really do some damage. Now,
Speaker 1: instead we connect other stuff to circuits, you know, like
Speaker 1: light bulbs, for example, and the electricity in the circuit
Speaker 1: powers the light bulb in your old fashioned incandescent light bulbs.
Speaker 1: The way this worked is that electricity would flow through
Speaker 1: a tiny little filament inside the bulb and heat that
Speaker 1: filament to a point where it would incandesce or light up.
Speaker 1: This filament would be connect to a pair of electrodes,
Speaker 1: and then the current could continue on the pathway and
Speaker 1: go to the next light bulb in the series. We
Speaker 1: call these elements the load on the circuit, and the
Speaker 1: load can't exceed what the voltage is capable of doing,
Speaker 1: or else things won't work out so well. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like you can push, say a heavy cart, up
Speaker 1: an incline. You can push it pretty well until it
Speaker 1: reaches a certain weight, and then your strength just isn't
Speaker 1: enough to push it up the incline. Same thing with voltage.
Speaker 1: If you add too much of a load on your
Speaker 1: circuit and the voltage can't get the job done, then
Speaker 1: you don't get a really good result. If you've ever
Speaker 1: used a battery powered device while the batteries were running
Speaker 1: out of juice, you kind of experienced this. You know,
Speaker 1: flashlights get dimmer before going out, and electric shavers start
Speaker 1: to lose their buzz. You get the picture. But as
Speaker 1: long as the load on a circuit is compatible with
Speaker 1: the voltage supplied, you're in business. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: series versus parallel. In a series circuit, each load follows
Speaker 1: the one before it. It's more like a direct line
Speaker 1: from the power supply to load one, and then from
Speaker 1: load one to load two, and so on until you
Speaker 1: get to the end where the path reconnects with the
Speaker 1: other tumble all the power supply. That means that power
Speaker 1: could come through the wire to light bulb number one,
Speaker 1: then continue to light bulb number two, and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth until you get to the end of
Speaker 1: the string, and you might plug a second string into
Speaker 1: the first, which continues the circuit. This is a pretty
Speaker 1: straightforward and simple approach, but there is one major problem.
Speaker 1: If a single light bulb burns out somewhere along that string,
Speaker 1: it breaks the whole circuit and everything goes dark. It's
Speaker 1: like if you turn the switch to off instead of on,
Speaker 1: the filament in that burnt out bulb breaks apart. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it burns through and that means the electricity no longer
Speaker 1: has a path it can follow. It's what we would
Speaker 1: call an open circuit. You have to find the burnt
Speaker 1: out bulb and replace it in order to repair the
Speaker 1: circuit and get things working again. It could be a
Speaker 1: real hassle. Same thing could come true if a light
Speaker 1: bulb becomes loose in its socket and it doesn't have
Speaker 1: a good connection. Same issue. At least in that case,
Speaker 1: you're not having to replace the bulb. You just have
Speaker 1: to figure out which one's lucy goosey in its socket.
Speaker 1: This is also why the Netflix series Stranger Things presented
Speaker 1: a real challenge to electricians like John Hilton, who worked
Speaker 1: on the series. Hilton appeared on an episode of Tech
Speaker 1: Stuff in the Past It's a great episode and we
Speaker 1: talked about this challenge. So Hilton and Jess Royal from
Speaker 1: the series talked about what it was like working on
Speaker 1: there from behind the scenes, and Hilton explained that the
Speaker 1: story required fine tune manipulation of a string of Christmas lights.
Speaker 1: So a character caught in the upside down would use
Speaker 1: Christmas lights to communicate with his mother by lighting up
Speaker 1: very specific bulbs on a string. But, as Hilton explained,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the opposite of how these old Christmas
Speaker 1: lights worked. You know, you can't just turn off or
Speaker 1: on a single bulb. They're either all on or they're
Speaker 1: all off. So to achieve the effect in the series,
Speaker 1: Hilton had to actually individually wire each bulb in a
Speaker 1: string to an electric board so they look like they
Speaker 1: were wired together, but they weren't. They were each wired separately,
Speaker 1: and from that electric board he could manipulate the bulbs
Speaker 1: individually by turning off or on the power to that
Speaker 1: specific bulb. However, he also had to make it look
Speaker 1: like it was a normal string of nineteen eighties era
Speaker 1: Christmas lights, which meant he had to find ways to
Speaker 1: hide all those individual wires running from each bulb to
Speaker 1: his control board, which is not an easy task, especially
Speaker 1: even if you're sitting there and only wiring up the
Speaker 1: lights that are going to be used to communicate. Like
Speaker 1: you figure out, oh they never use the letter K
Speaker 1: or Q or whatever, it's still a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: wires to deal with. Now, I did mention that you
Speaker 1: could also wire circuits in parallel. Now, I imagine in
Speaker 1: this case that rather than having each bulb connected in
Speaker 1: a straight line on that circuit. You have a pair
Speaker 1: of wires connected to each bulb that then you know,
Speaker 1: branches off from the main circuit path. So instead of
Speaker 1: a string which is just one bulb after the other,
Speaker 1: it's more like a string in which there's kind of
Speaker 1: a turnoff for bulb number one, but if you just
Speaker 1: keep going down the string, you'll come to the turnoff
Speaker 1: for bulb number two and so on. These bulbs are
Speaker 1: in a way, they're isolated from one another. And a
Speaker 1: big benefit to this approach is that if a single
Speaker 1: bulb burns out, the path is unbroken for the rest
Speaker 1: of the string, so your entire string doesn't go dark.
Speaker 1: You would still have one dark bulb, but you would
Speaker 1: have to replace that, but everything else would still be
Speaker 1: lit up. Now, some Christmas lights are wired in what's
Speaker 1: called series parallel, all right, So this means you have
Speaker 1: multiple strings of lights wired in series, but collectively, each
Speaker 1: individual string of lights are in parallel with one another.
Speaker 1: So let's say there's like four parallel strings of lights
Speaker 1: and one of those strings goes out, the other three
Speaker 1: would remain lit up, so you would have a section
Speaker 1: go dark, but the rest of your lights would still
Speaker 1: be lit up and that's series parallel. It's part and
Speaker 1: part right within a series string. Any light going out
Speaker 1: makes the rest of that string go out, but the
Speaker 1: rest of the parallel strings remain lit up. You know.
Speaker 1: That's how it used to be, right that if a
Speaker 1: light goes out, then you're kind of up the creek.
Speaker 1: More recently, Christmas lights have included an element called a shunt,
Speaker 1: which helps. So this is something that creates a path
Speaker 1: of lower resistance in an electric circuit, and electricity will
Speaker 1: follow the path of least resistance. Electricity is a lot
Speaker 1: like me. If there's a task that requires effort, I'm
Speaker 1: likely to seek out the way in which I can
Speaker 1: expend the least amount of energy to complete that task,
Speaker 1: even if that means I don't do as good a
Speaker 1: job in the process. If my bosses are listening, I
Speaker 1: was only kidding. So the shunts in Christmas lights are
Speaker 1: wires connected to the electrodes. So remember I mentioned that
Speaker 1: a filament connects two electrodes together, and then electricity, you know,
Speaker 1: flows through the filament and heats it up and incandesces
Speaker 1: and that's where you get your light and your old
Speaker 1: incandescent lights. Eventually, the filament will burn out. It just
Speaker 1: it burns through and breaks, and then you don't have
Speaker 1: a path anymore. Well, the shunt acts as a secondary
Speaker 1: connection between those two electrons, but it has a higher
Speaker 1: resistance than the filament. So normally electricity will flow through
Speaker 1: the filament because again it follows the path of least resistance.
Speaker 1: But if the filament breaks, now it'll flow through the
Speaker 1: shunt because even though it had a higher electrical resistance,
Speaker 1: it still represents a viable path. And if there is
Speaker 1: a viable path, electricity will take it. And so the
Speaker 1: show goes on. Since I'm talking about shunts, I should
Speaker 1: also take a moment to talk about fuses. So a
Speaker 1: fuse is a safety measure. The fuse is there to
Speaker 1: make sure that if something really unexpected happens, like let's
Speaker 1: say there's a surge in electricity, the voltage suddenly changes
Speaker 1: very dramatically, you don't want that to cause more problems.
Speaker 1: You don't want that to create like a fire hazard,
Speaker 1: for example. So the fuse allows electricity to flow through
Speaker 1: under normal conditions, but if it's under a more extreme circumstance,
Speaker 1: the fuze will break, kind of like the filament does
Speaker 1: once it burns out. But the fuse is designed to
Speaker 1: break on purpose once voltage exceeds a certain level, so
Speaker 1: it's like a limit on how much it can allow through,
Speaker 1: and if the incoming voltage exceeds that, the fuse trips,
Speaker 1: so you don't end up with a real catastrophe on
Speaker 1: your hands. It's just an open circuit so the electricity
Speaker 1: doesn't flow through. In Christmas lights, you can typically find
Speaker 1: fuses near the plug where it plugs into either the
Speaker 1: wall or another string of Christmas lights. In some of
Speaker 1: these lights, you can actually replace the fuse if it
Speaker 1: does burn out. I have never done this personally, so
Speaker 1: I have no clue as to how challenging or easy
Speaker 1: it is to do this, though these days with my eyesight,
Speaker 1: I imagine it'd be devilishly tricky if I don't have
Speaker 1: my peepers on. One other thing that I should mention
Speaker 1: is the transition from incandescent bulbs to LED bulbs. So
Speaker 1: incandescent bulbs that was what we had when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, those big Christmas lights. We even had bubblers
Speaker 1: disslights that would include liquid in a little vial that
Speaker 1: would bubble as the light would heat the liquid up.
Speaker 1: It was really neat or I thought it was really neat.
Speaker 1: But in stranger things. You know, the crew were working
Speaker 1: with these old incandescent bulbs because again that's what we
Speaker 1: had in the nineteen eighties. But these days Christmas lights
Speaker 1: tend to be LEDs, light emitting diodes. Now that's great
Speaker 1: for lots of different reasons. One is that LEDs need
Speaker 1: way less energy to generate light, something like seventy percent
Speaker 1: less than incandescent strings, which is both good for the environment.
Speaker 1: It's also good for your wallet because you won't be
Speaker 1: footing a massive electricity bill just to keep your house
Speaker 1: all holly jolly. Also, LED bulbs last a whole lot
Speaker 1: longer than incandescent bulbs do. And you can even create
Speaker 1: strings of LED lights in which each LED can be
Speaker 1: turned on or off individually. That's advanced level stuff that
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. Now. Your typical LED string
Speaker 1: of lights you can't do that. They're not designed to
Speaker 1: do that. They just plug into your wall, they all
Speaker 1: come on. They might have a simple controller on them
Speaker 1: that allows them to do things like dim and brighten
Speaker 1: or twinkle or flash those kinds of things. That's basic
Speaker 1: level stuff. Serious hobbyists get into the individually controllable LED bulbs,
Speaker 1: where each LED bulb has its own microchip, which in
Speaker 1: turn has to be wired to a controller. When we
Speaker 1: talk about addresses and stuff, we'll get more into that,
Speaker 1: because that's kind of like the advanced level thing. On
Speaker 1: a side note, those last types of LEDs aren't something
Speaker 1: you're going to find in your typical big box stores.
Speaker 1: Those Christmas lights tend to be far simpler in design.
Speaker 1: Those are like the off the shelf things that you'll
Speaker 1: find in your basic retail store. Some retail stores are
Speaker 1: selling kits for holiday light shows, but they tend to
Speaker 1: be proprietary, and at least in the hobbyist field, the
Speaker 1: serious hobbyists tend to look down on those kits. One
Speaker 1: because they don't have as much flexibility. You can't incorporate
Speaker 1: things that are outside those proprietary kits to work with them.
Speaker 1: Another is that there's at least an opinion, a fairly
Speaker 1: prevalent opinion, and the hobbyists that I listened to as
Speaker 1: I was listening to podcasts and watching videos and stuff,
Speaker 1: who feel that the quality of those products is lower
Speaker 1: than what you'll get if you're doing things yourself, and
Speaker 1: that a lot of those things will break down after
Speaker 1: a season or two and that it just gets really
Speaker 1: expensive and wasteful. So your mileage may vary, but that's
Speaker 1: what I heard. So most of the hobby blogs and
Speaker 1: videos that I encountered suggested that you should order straight
Speaker 1: from where the lights are manufactured, which is China. They
Speaker 1: also warned that this also comes with its own risks.
Speaker 1: If something doesn't work correctly, it may be difficult or
Speaker 1: even impossible to return the lights to get working ones,
Speaker 1: so you have to be really careful to make sure
Speaker 1: that you're ordering from a reputable seller. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: LEDs that serious hobbyists use typically are meant for stuff
Speaker 1: like digital disp lays and signage where you need to
Speaker 1: be able to control individual lights in order to spell
Speaker 1: things out right like roadwork ahead or whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: except you're using it to make frosty, you know, melt
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know what you do for your
Speaker 1: Christmas lights displays. So these have just been repurposed to
Speaker 1: be really a holly jolly kind of approach. And now
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about some more details of the
Speaker 1: early days of Christmas lights show as a hobby, so
Speaker 1: we're back now. In the early days, light show hobbyists
Speaker 1: ran into problems similar to those of the Stranger Things Crew.
Speaker 1: The old style Christmas lights could only be controlled by
Speaker 1: the string rather by the individual bulb, So you could
Speaker 1: turn a string of lights off or on, and that
Speaker 1: was relatively simple on a high It just meant that
Speaker 1: you had to control the electricity that was going to
Speaker 1: that particular string. You know, you turned the electricity off,
Speaker 1: the lights go off, you turn it on, the lights
Speaker 1: come on. That's it. The old lights had no ability
Speaker 1: to change color either. If you wanted to create an
Speaker 1: effect of a color change, then it meant that you
Speaker 1: actually had to use multiple strings of lights. Like let's
Speaker 1: say you wanted to outline a window frame outside your
Speaker 1: house in lights and create an effect that those lights
Speaker 1: are changing from red to green. Well, you would actually
Speaker 1: have to use strings of red lights to outline the
Speaker 1: frame and then strings of green lights to outline the frame,
Speaker 1: and then you would just have to alternate which string
Speaker 1: was getting power at what time in order to get
Speaker 1: that effect of red changing to green and green changing
Speaker 1: to red. Modern led lights often have RGB red green
Speaker 1: and blue elements inside each bulb, meaning that you control
Speaker 1: the concentration of what kind of light is allowed to
Speaker 1: be emitted, so you can actually change the color within
Speaker 1: a single string of lights. Now you don't have to
Speaker 1: double up or triple up whatever it may be, which
Speaker 1: does simplify things at least from a wiring perspective, not
Speaker 1: necessarily from the programming perspective. As for controlling which string
Speaker 1: received power at any given time, well, you would need
Speaker 1: to run your lights to a controller box. So essentially
Speaker 1: this box acts as a switch, and in the old
Speaker 1: days it is simply just switched power going from one
Speaker 1: outlet connected to one set of lights or a different outlet.
Speaker 1: The strings of lights would attach to the controller box.
Speaker 1: But the controller is just a tool. It doesn't know
Speaker 1: when it's supposed to switch stuff on or off on
Speaker 1: its own. It has to be programmed. And with a program,
Speaker 1: the controller follows a preset series of instructions a sequence
Speaker 1: in order to achieve whatever the effect was that was desired. Again,
Speaker 1: those early variations essentially just being which strings of lights
Speaker 1: were on or off at any given moment. Now, as
Speaker 1: we'll see, if you really want to go all out
Speaker 1: for the holidays, you could get wicked complicated with your setup,
Speaker 1: but let's start with the simple stuff. So let's say
Speaker 1: you've got your strings of lights hung with care on
Speaker 1: your home. You know, the trees, the family dog, whatever
Speaker 1: it might be, And now you want to create a
Speaker 1: sequence for these lights to follow. They shouldn't just twinkle
Speaker 1: or stay on. They should go on and off according
Speaker 1: to your whimsical nature, perhaps creating animated effects or spelling
Speaker 1: stuff out. Even it takes an awful lot of technology
Speaker 1: and effort to enable whimsy. As it turns out, we
Speaker 1: aren't all like Willy Waka, where things just magically happen.
Speaker 1: So the world of hobbyists Christmas lights shows ends up
Speaker 1: borrowing a lot of technology and technique from the world
Speaker 1: of stage lighting. Now, if you've ever been to a
Speaker 1: big professional theatrical production like a Broadway show or an
Speaker 1: arena concert, you've likely seen some pretty amazing lighting effects,
Speaker 1: like entire banks of lights might sweep around and focus
Speaker 1: on a specific spot, or create interesting patterns on the background,
Speaker 1: or all sorts of other effects. To achieve that, and
Speaker 1: not to have five hundred stage hands manually controlling every
Speaker 1: light with precision, you need some special circuit boards. Now
Speaker 1: I mentioned a controller earlier. These are large logic boards
Speaker 1: that the direct power or commands to specific elements according
Speaker 1: to a pre program set of instructions. Now, before we
Speaker 1: get into those more, let's talk about LEDs. Let's say
Speaker 1: that you've gone all out. You've decided to get the
Speaker 1: LEDs that you're able to control one bulb at a time.
Speaker 1: Each of these bulbs can create any number of colors
Speaker 1: using a variation of the red, green, and blue elements
Speaker 1: that are inside each bulb. Essentially, these bulbs are pixels,
Speaker 1: just like you would have on a television or other display.
Speaker 1: Each light bulb represents one point of light, and by
Speaker 1: controlling them collectively, you can create different shapes, including words.
Speaker 1: The pixel lights typically will be able again to create
Speaker 1: pretty much any color you want. Some Christmas lights sequencer
Speaker 1: programs refer to these pixels as nodes. Technically, a node
Speaker 1: is any singular controllable element in a show. So let's
Speaker 1: say that you have a string of lights that's an
Speaker 1: old style string right the series lights where you can't
Speaker 1: control individual light bulbs, that string would be a node.
Speaker 1: But if you do have bulbs that can be controlled individually,
Speaker 1: each bulb would be a node, So it all depends
Speaker 1: on what are you controlling. Whether it's a string or
Speaker 1: a single light bulb, each one would be a single node.
Speaker 1: These lights have a different kind of plug, the fancy
Speaker 1: led ones, they have a different kind of plug than
Speaker 1: the ones you would find on your regular old Christmas
Speaker 1: light strings. You wouldn't plug them into the wall. And
Speaker 1: it makes sense because these lights have to be able
Speaker 1: to accept digital commands. So you know, you have your
Speaker 1: wires that are in charge of carrying the electricity to
Speaker 1: the bulbs, but you also need to be able to
Speaker 1: control data. So it's a three pin plug and it's
Speaker 1: designed to plug into a controller. The controllers themselves come
Speaker 1: in several varieties. You can purchase components separately. You can actually,
Speaker 1: you know, buy a circuit board controller unit and you know,
Speaker 1: an old like power box, waterproof power box and mount
Speaker 1: your circuit board inside the power box along with a
Speaker 1: power supply and some other elements. It's a lot like
Speaker 1: building a PC from basic components if you have ever
Speaker 1: done that, where you order all the different elements from
Speaker 1: different companies whatever, assuming that you've made sure that they're
Speaker 1: all going to be compatible, and then you mount them
Speaker 1: in the case and then you turn it on and
Speaker 1: hope that it works. Similar thing there. However, nowadays quite
Speaker 1: a few companies are offering fully built out controller systems,
Speaker 1: like ready to play controller systems, so that you don't
Speaker 1: have to do any of that stuff yourself. Now, you're
Speaker 1: likely going to be paying more for a ready to
Speaker 1: run style controller, but not that much more. The gap
Speaker 1: between doing it yourself and the stuff that's already been assembled,
Speaker 1: it's not huge, and if you value your time a lot,
Speaker 1: then you may say, hey, it makes way more sense
Speaker 1: for me to buy this ready made solution as opposed
Speaker 1: to trying to do it myself. If, however, you get
Speaker 1: lots of joy and satisfaction out of doing it yourself,
Speaker 1: that's a completely legitimate reason to do it. You're just
Speaker 1: not going to save that much money. You will save
Speaker 1: a little now. One thing the controller is going to
Speaker 1: need is obviously power, so figuring out how to run
Speaker 1: a power supply to a controller is an important step.
Speaker 1: It's also important that that power supply is weather proofed,
Speaker 1: so in the old days, like I said, you might
Speaker 1: mount a power supply like the kind you would use
Speaker 1: with a PC inside the power box along with the
Speaker 1: controller's circuit board and just run power from the box
Speaker 1: to the circuit board, then cables connecting to the power
Speaker 1: source that would then run to say, an outlet in
Speaker 1: your home, or you might buy a weather proofed power
Speaker 1: source that can sit on the ground and then run
Speaker 1: a cable from that to your controller. But yeah, that
Speaker 1: power ends up going to the controller, which then can
Speaker 1: send power out to the various elements connected to your show.
Speaker 1: But yeah, figuring that out is really important. Really complex
Speaker 1: displays may actually use multiple controllers. Some may use several
Speaker 1: big controllers or lots of small ones, or a combination
Speaker 1: of the two. That obviously necessitates multiple power solutions to
Speaker 1: make everything work and not become like a tripping hazard
Speaker 1: for everyone living in the home. That itself can be
Speaker 1: a huge challenge. Typically, you also have to connect another
Speaker 1: device like a computer to the controller. In the old days,
Speaker 1: you had to have in the old days being like
Speaker 1: three years ago, you had to have your computer connected
Speaker 1: to the controller so that you could send the sequence
Speaker 1: the show to the controller so that it then could
Speaker 1: send the commands out to all the different elements. Because again,
Speaker 1: the controller doesn't have any real intelligence itself. It just
Speaker 1: knows where to send instructions at what time to what element,
Speaker 1: but it has to get those instructions from somewhere. Typically
Speaker 1: that was a computer. Now these days you can get
Speaker 1: a device that often is referenced as a show player.
Speaker 1: In a way, it's kind of like a dry that
Speaker 1: stores show instructions and it will take on the role
Speaker 1: of the computer. Like you have to still program the
Speaker 1: show on your computer, but you then send that program
Speaker 1: to the show player, which stores the program, and then
Speaker 1: when it's the right time to initiate, it will send
Speaker 1: all the commands to the controller, which then sends those
Speaker 1: signals to the various elements in your Christmas show. If
Speaker 1: your display has elements that are really far away from
Speaker 1: the controller, and by far i'm talking like maybe more
Speaker 1: than twenty five feet, then you'll also probably have to
Speaker 1: use receivers. I mean, you could use different controllers for
Speaker 1: different elements so that you know no element is more
Speaker 1: than twenty five feet away from its controller, But that
Speaker 1: gets really complicated. Receivers receive a signal from the controller
Speaker 1: and then send it further along the chain, which allows
Speaker 1: you to have certain show elements that would be further
Speaker 1: away from the controller. So you have a really big yard,
Speaker 1: for example, and you want to run elements way out
Speaker 1: to trees or in the front, as well as all
Speaker 1: the stuff that's in your you know, on your house itself.
Speaker 1: That might be something that you would have to look into.
Speaker 1: Another component you'll probably need is a radio transmitter in
Speaker 1: the FM band of frequencies. Now, this is so that
Speaker 1: the people driving up to watch your display can tune
Speaker 1: into a particular radio station to hear the accompanying music.
Speaker 1: Some displays also make use of outdoor speaker systems that
Speaker 1: will play music, you know, not as a super high
Speaker 1: volume at least if you have any consideration for your neighbors,
Speaker 1: but within the actual environment, so people walking up could
Speaker 1: hear the music too. However, if you're going to use
Speaker 1: a radio transmitter, there are certain rules you have to follow.
Speaker 1: So countries have very strict laws regarding radio frequency bands
Speaker 1: and who can use them and what they can be
Speaker 1: used for. And in order to have permission to broadcast
Speaker 1: on certain bands like the FM radio frequency band, typically
Speaker 1: you need to secure a license, which is incredibly expensive. However,
Speaker 1: if your transmission is under a certain power, you're okay.
Speaker 1: So here in the United States, the rule is if
Speaker 1: you're staying under point zero one microwatts of power at
Speaker 1: three meters, you're good to go, and you can choose
Speaker 1: the frequency band you want to broadcast on. You would
Speaker 1: need to choose something other than a radio station currently
Speaker 1: in use in your area or else your broadcast is
Speaker 1: going to be completely overpowered, and then you need to
Speaker 1: alert folks that they should tune their car radios to
Speaker 1: that specific channel. The transmitter's job is to transmit the
Speaker 1: signal sent to it over the radio, and the signal
Speaker 1: ideally is some Christmas music that you have coordinated with
Speaker 1: the program light display during the actual sequencing or programming phase,
Speaker 1: so it's another component. Also, the music obviously ends up
Speaker 1: being something that gets sent to the show player as well.
Speaker 1: It's all part of the program. Really, you could think
Speaker 1: of it as almost like a video where you've got
Speaker 1: the audio and the video stuff all synced up. It's
Speaker 1: similar to that. One other element you'll need, and you'll
Speaker 1: need several of these depending on what you want to do,
Speaker 1: is some sort of mounting material for the lights. So
Speaker 1: this is essentially a frame through which you plug the
Speaker 1: light bulbs in so that each pixel is held in
Speaker 1: the right position relative to its neighbors. Now that probably
Speaker 1: sounds obvious. If you're controlling bulbs pixel by pixel, The
Speaker 1: only way it works is if all the pixels maintain
Speaker 1: their relative position to one another. So you might use
Speaker 1: strips of plastic with holes cut through to push the
Speaker 1: bulbs into. You could create shapes that you wanted to
Speaker 1: in order, like do your own so that you get
Speaker 1: the effects to have stuff light up, but those are
Speaker 1: really hard, Like I mean, if you wanted to make
Speaker 1: a snowman or a reindeer or crampus or whatever, doing
Speaker 1: it yourself is extremely challenging. These are often referred to
Speaker 1: as props, and the nice thing is you can buy
Speaker 1: props like the hobby. There's tons of props that are
Speaker 1: available in different shapes. So if you want candy canes,
Speaker 1: no problem. You can get candy cane shapes and these
Speaker 1: props frequently you can actually get the digital equivalent of
Speaker 1: the prop to be plugged into your sequencing software so
Speaker 1: that your computer automatically recognizes these prop shapes and how
Speaker 1: they are lined up. So the props tend to come
Speaker 1: with instructions on how you are to install those pixels,
Speaker 1: how you plug the digital pixels in where you start,
Speaker 1: where you end what pattern you want to follow, and
Speaker 1: then that gets sent to the computer software. And the
Speaker 1: computer software already knows where each of those pixels are
Speaker 1: in relation to each other, so that way, when you
Speaker 1: run a program through it, it displays properly on the prop.
Speaker 1: Because that you have to tell the pixels where they live,
Speaker 1: you have to create addresses. So yeah, for programs to
Speaker 1: even work, lights have to have an address. Each light
Speaker 1: has its own address. This as much like your computer
Speaker 1: or your smartphone has an IP address on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Similar thing. For the controller to know which bulbs to
Speaker 1: turn on and off, those bulbs have to have an address.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you would just have random patterns being shown, and
Speaker 1: if your bulbs weren't in the right position, it would
Speaker 1: just look like a mess. So the standard that the
Speaker 1: lighting industry here in the United States uses is called
Speaker 1: DMX or sometimes DMX five twelve. The lighting industry in
Speaker 1: stage and concert productions developed the standard over a number
Speaker 1: of years in order to streamline control processes because before
Speaker 1: that standard, lighting technicians had to deal with lots of
Speaker 1: different proprietary methods to control different elements on the lighting board.
Speaker 1: That was really complicated and it meant it was a
Speaker 1: real pain in the butt to set up and break down.
Speaker 1: It was a nightmare from a wiring perspective. DMX five
Speaker 1: twelve simplified matters. So essentially, every device, every node will
Speaker 1: if you will, gets a DMX address. Now, some devices
Speaker 1: actually receive more than one address. For example, let's say
Speaker 1: you've got a light mounted in a system and the
Speaker 1: light has the ability to dim, well, the dimmer is
Speaker 1: on an address. If the mounted system can tilt, well,
Speaker 1: you've got tilt controls. That requires another address, and so on.
Speaker 1: So depending on how much an element can do, if
Speaker 1: it can pan left and right, well, then you need
Speaker 1: addresses for that. It's not necessarily a one to one system.
Speaker 1: In other words, it all depends on the number of
Speaker 1: effects the device is capable of producing. Each effect needs
Speaker 1: to have its own address so the controller can send
Speaker 1: the correct signal to that element at the right time.
Speaker 1: Now I could do an entire episode on DMX and
Speaker 1: the technologies associated with it and not even touch on
Speaker 1: the fact that there's also the music artist DMX, but
Speaker 1: that's getting away from our conversation about Christmas light shows.
Speaker 1: What you need to know is that DMX five twelve
Speaker 1: makes it possible to quantify and control each pixel in
Speaker 1: a display, and since it's a standard, you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about proprietary issues, assuming you haven't bought into
Speaker 1: some proprietary string of lights controller system. Again, that's why
Speaker 1: Obvious often will buy direct from China to get these
Speaker 1: elements that can work with the open standards of DMX
Speaker 1: five twelve as opposed to some proprietary approach where it
Speaker 1: only works with that one company's equipment, because you want
Speaker 1: to be able to incorporate whatever elements you like and
Speaker 1: not be limited to what some company has created. Now
Speaker 1: let's talk about software. There are a few different software
Speaker 1: packages out there that let you program at Christmas lights show.
Speaker 1: People have their favorites. They all are trying to do
Speaker 1: the same thing, but the user interface is quite different
Speaker 1: from software to software. Some people prefer one over another.
Speaker 1: The one that I hear the most frequently, I think
Speaker 1: is x lights. It's an open source lights sequencing software package.
Speaker 1: I have not done this myself, so I do not
Speaker 1: have a preference. I suggest doing research on the different
Speaker 1: software packages out there to figure out which one makes
Speaker 1: sense to you. They all can seem a little obtuse
Speaker 1: at first like there's a pretty steep learning curve. But
Speaker 1: in this software you have to go through a process
Speaker 1: called pixel mapping. That is, you have to tell your
Speaker 1: computer where each bulb is in your display so that
Speaker 1: you're able to create the effects that you actually want
Speaker 1: to show. If you're using props from manufacturers, that process
Speaker 1: is made simpler because most software packages make it possible
Speaker 1: for you to indicate which props you're using, and the
Speaker 1: program automatically associates the shape where the lights are, so
Speaker 1: that if you want, say your reindeer to go from
Speaker 1: green to blood red, then you know you can just
Speaker 1: easily pull up that sequence and associate it with the shape.
Speaker 1: In this computer program, you do build out sequences. These
Speaker 1: are the animations and commands that make up your Christmas show,
Speaker 1: and typically you want to coordinate those with whatever music
Speaker 1: you're playing. So this all gets associated with a timeline
Speaker 1: and that gives you precise control over when each element
Speaker 1: in your sequence initiates. Programming sequences can end up getting
Speaker 1: very complicated. The hobbyists all have also uploaded sequences that
Speaker 1: they have design and other people can download those sequences
Speaker 1: import them into their own control software like x lights
Speaker 1: and then incorporate it into their own show. So if
Speaker 1: the whole idea of programming and entire display is daunting
Speaker 1: to you, like if it seems too technical or two
Speaker 1: time consuming, it is possible to download previously program sequences
Speaker 1: and then run them on your system. Once the show
Speaker 1: is programmed, you then can export it to the show
Speaker 1: player in the controller or controller is connected to your show,
Speaker 1: assuming that you have those and which case, at that point,
Speaker 1: your computer is no longer needed, Like, all all you
Speaker 1: did was create the sequence. It sent the sequence to
Speaker 1: the show player that's now stored on the show player.
Speaker 1: Your computer is done. You don't have to keep it
Speaker 1: connected to the system, unless, of course, something in the
Speaker 1: show doesn't work and you have to go back and
Speaker 1: check the program for errors and figure out what went wrong.
Speaker 1: Which does happen now? I got to be straight with
Speaker 1: all of y'all. The programming part of this is a
Speaker 1: particularly huge task. If you're picking on everything yourself, it
Speaker 1: can be just as or more time consuming as plugging
Speaker 1: each individual led into a prop or wiring everything up
Speaker 1: in the first place and mounting it in your yard
Speaker 1: or on your house. There are some great tutorials online
Speaker 1: for the various programs out there. So for example, if
Speaker 1: you want to know how to get started with X lights,
Speaker 1: the YouTube channel how to Pixel. The number two how
Speaker 1: to Pixel has a thorough tutorial on X lights, and
Speaker 1: by thorough, I mean it's two and a half hours long.
Speaker 1: Like I said, this stuff gets complicated. Another YouTube channel
Speaker 1: that I highly recommend is learn Christmas Lighting by above AVL,
Speaker 1: which has multiple videos dedicated to different components in Christmas
Speaker 1: lights shows. These folks come from the world of theatrical lighting,
Speaker 1: so their expertise is considerable in the subject. I do
Speaker 1: suggest that if you are interested in this, take a look,
Speaker 1: start reading about it at least or watchings and see
Speaker 1: if it's something that you know kind of clicks with you.
Speaker 1: Then is something that you'd be interested in, And try
Speaker 1: not to go all out right out the gate like
Speaker 1: build up, you know, gradually, so that you can kind
Speaker 1: of get comfortable with all the various elements needed in
Speaker 1: this hobby to make it work, Like you don't need
Speaker 1: to go all out with fog machines and panning and
Speaker 1: tilting lights and all that kind of stuff right from
Speaker 1: the start, Like start slow, get to know the software,
Speaker 1: get to know the hardware and become familiar with it
Speaker 1: so that you can build upon that knowledge and create
Speaker 1: more complicated and impressive light displays moving forward. Also, keep
Speaker 1: in mind, as I said earlier, this hobby is one
Speaker 1: that is evolving rapidly. The sophistication of the tools has
Speaker 1: changed so much over just the last few years. Like
Speaker 1: it wasn't always possible for you to be able to
Speaker 1: buy an off the shelf controller, for example, you had
Speaker 1: to kind of put those things together yourself. You can
Speaker 1: easily do that. There are multiple companies that offer them,
Speaker 1: So dip your toe in by watching some videos, reading
Speaker 1: some blogs, reading some instructions and stuff, find out what
Speaker 1: kind of fits your your comfort level and go from there.
Speaker 1: But the cool thing is that ultimately you're going to
Speaker 1: end up with a really interesting and fun display that
Speaker 1: can delight people who stop by, and you can really
Speaker 1: celebrate ingenuity and innovation and technology along with the concept
Speaker 1: of people coming together and spending time with each other
Speaker 1: and showing appreciation for one another. I think that's a
Speaker 1: great thing when technology and sappy sentimentality can come together.
Speaker 1: Because I'm a soft touch y'all. You should probably know
Speaker 1: that by now if you've been listening for a while. Anyway.
Speaker 1: That's a quick overview of do it yourself Christmas lights shows.
Speaker 1: There is so much more to talk about. I didn't
Speaker 1: even really scratch the surface, but I just wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of raise awareness. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: they've just seen the stuff that's online and they haven't
Speaker 1: thought what kind of work goes into actually making that.
Speaker 1: It's considerable amount of work, but the reward of designing
Speaker 1: a really nice lights show is also considerable. I mean
Speaker 1: it may not be monetary, but at least it's a
Speaker 1: sense of satisfaction of having created something really eye catching
Speaker 1: and delightful. I hope all of you out there are
Speaker 1: doing well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
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