Question for all the new members [Archive] - Do It Yourself Christmas Forums

mark

12-20-2007, 06:13 PM

thanks for the work you do on this site and to all the helpful folks on here!

i found computerchristmas.com about three years ago (someone on another forum i visit asked about controlling lights with a computer and that's where yahoo sent me). i read all the how-tos on the site back then but never built anything. a couple of months ago i was cleaning out my favorites and visited that site again. i'm not sure if i found a link on there or did another search, but i found this forum. at the beginning of the year we relocated and bought a new house a few months ago and decided it was time to do something really cool. it was too late for this year, but i have received a bunch of samples and am looking to put together Firegod's controller for next year. i've read how-tos here and on sites that i've found links to and am already thinking about what i can do next year. if all goes well, my set up should be at least 25 channels.

kmiller

12-20-2007, 06:14 PM

Not sure if this helps, but I followed over from the Hill Robertson site.

mkoehler01

12-20-2007, 06:16 PM

I followed a link from another forum. I think it was on computerchristmas.com

Wombat

12-20-2007, 06:24 PM

I originally found it on Computer Christmas. Well Vixen anyway. Found the link to the Forums and Wella here I am.

Wombat

Jeff Millard

12-20-2007, 06:47 PM

ikabod

12-20-2007, 06:47 PM

link from computerchristmas.com

12-20-2007, 07:44 PM

I open my favorites menu and hit the first one! how do you get here?

Wayne J

12-20-2007, 07:51 PM

The ghost of Christmas future brought me here. :lol:

klanger

12-20-2007, 07:55 PM

I'm with Wayne.

Also migrated here from CC. And have been here from the begining.

Kevin

wbuehler

12-20-2007, 08:05 PM

You can blame Wayne for me. A Co-Worker sent me a link to his Mooresville display and in the newspaper article Wayne gave a plug to this site I followed it here and have not left yet.

Bill

RavingLunatic

12-20-2007, 08:11 PM

I guess Brian should have defined "new member" a little better.

I would imagine he is trying to figure out how the approx 300 new members since Thanksgiving found out about the site.

I'm pretty sure he knows how the regular (didn't want to say old) members who migrated from the old Vixen forums got here. :wink:

But I do enjoy the humor in those replys. :lol:

rrowan

12-20-2007, 08:28 PM

I Google search for computer controlled Christmas lights and either another site or one of the links brought me here. Looking around the site I knew I found the right place.

Rick R.

tnorman

12-20-2007, 10:09 PM

I saw a commercial, while watching the Cowboy’s game, which showed a house with controlled lights. I googled computer controlled lights which led me to the site. I wish I had found it much earlier than a week or two ago. Oh well, I have two 64 channel boards on the way and should be ready for next year. Now if I could just find enough lights at a good price.

petefats

12-20-2007, 10:34 PM

I spent weeks throwing around google searches like 'serial relay board' and 'computer relay controller' with no luck. I finally tried 'computer controlled christmas lights' and found computerchristmas.com. After reading alot of the howto's and whatnot there, I stumbled across vixenlights.com. The wiki for vixen is hosted on christmasinshirley.com, which led me to all of you.

Trepidati0n

12-20-2007, 11:51 PM

some how found vixen....then found this site via it...

cmurray

12-20-2007, 11:59 PM

If you have access to the server logs they can maybe tell you what the referring site is.

My infamous listing on bad covers is generating 1000 hits per day on youtube for my one video.

Joel

Greg in Canby

12-21-2007, 12:02 AM

I open my favorites menu and hit the first one! how do you get here?

Me too.

Before that, I was lurking at CC and migrated over here about 6 months ago.

deej012160

12-21-2007, 12:43 AM

First post! WeeyHoo. :lol:

I was Googling around for info on DIYing a DMX dimmer and followed a link from christmasinshirley.com. I didn't register there, but I did here because this place seems to have better info than the other places I hit.

I'm a working musician & web designer by trade and build all my own guitar effects, amplifiers and just finished a modified Manolator PC-DMX controller that works great. I even burned the PIC16F88 for it (my first experience with doing that). As a working musician, I've been using DMX stage lighting for several years now, but am just getting into tweaking to my needs recently.

If anyone wants to know about acid etching PCBs, enclosures or other goodies, I've done a ton of them and have a couple tricks up my sleeve. I'm also notoriously cheap so my builds are never expensive. In fact I'm an expert in 're-purposing' materials. 8)

Cheers,
- JJ

Iced

12-21-2007, 01:08 AM

I only found this site through this post on Computer Christmas (http://computerchristmas.com/ForumBoard/read.php?f=4&i=13869&t=13868)

I had been trying to figure out dimming systems for a couple weeks now but i kept getting confused the more places I visited. I'm hoping this becomes the one stop place for what I plan to do. Thanks again!

JEEPGUY

12-21-2007, 03:04 AM

I had Googled "computer controlled lights" and found Light O Rama and saw how much they wanted then Googled "DIY computer controlled lights" and Voila! I am here, hook line and sinker.

josh.masters

12-21-2007, 03:32 AM

Howdy all!!!
I found the site through Computer Christmas also. Lots of great information!!!

Terry

IronRuss

12-21-2007, 02:58 PM

I found link to this site threw one of Brains posts on Planet Christmas.

This site is amazing, all the people that have designed anything and are helping, hats off to you. A big Thank YOU!!!

I am not new to this; I started out in it, in 2001 if not earlier with computer controlled lights. I have been dormant from it for a few years now. This is a how to of mine I did back then http://computerchristmas.com/christmas/link-how_to/HowToId-11/How_to_photo_etch_a_PCB. I cannot believe all the different DIY systems now available. Awesome job guys!! There was not a lot to choose from back then, Hills system and Dasher. I started out with a preprogrammed chip from the Cave (snowball fight) then I got LOR with two serial controlled dasher chips that I had. About as far as I got back then, I just wanted to roll my own hardware but that was hard to do unless you knew a lot about electronics. I did design my own PCB with dashers serial chips and SSRs on them and still have the parts to build several more boxes except the PIC chips and firmware to program into the chip.

Very Cool site!
Russ

newbie

12-21-2007, 03:24 PM

i found this site off another site, and another and another site...I lost track after the first few...but the search started from GOOGLE

piesrule58

12-21-2007, 06:45 PM

Googled Computer Xmas Lights and found Light O Rama. Figured that it was way too expensive for me in Australia. Googled DIY Christmas with the intention of improving my static display and this site appeared. Have spoken to klanger and wjohn and now I am well and truly hooked.

jimr625

12-21-2007, 09:09 PM

from the computer Christmas site. I was following that last year and found this one a little easier to follow when the holidays got me all excited this year. The information here seems to be organized a bit better.

Thanks to all of those that put the hard work into this site as well as the others that many of you have been involved in!!!

zoommedic

12-22-2007, 12:09 AM

fount light o rama then computer christmas, the this site!!!!!

Macrosill

12-22-2007, 07:35 AM

It seems as though we need to get a higher ranking with the search engines in order to get direct links to here.

Matt

12-22-2007, 09:10 AM

In terms of a higher search engine ranking, computer christmas is second in a google search for 'computer controlled christmas lights', after the google news results. Anyone who posts a link to this site over there should make sure it's a link, not just a text url. That would boost the pagerank for this site (currently at 1/10) higher because the links are from a site that google views as important.

Also, it doesn't look like there is any meta information in the page - a description and keywords could help.

As well as keywords involving computerized lights, it might also be a good idea to include keywords involving 'christmas light show', etc.

-Matt

rice66

12-22-2007, 01:33 PM

I like torman's post saw the wiz of win controlled lights during the superbowl (budlights) and I was hooked found the other forums/commercial controller ads, but the how to's on the other forum is where I landed, because I have made all of my controllers and 595's by home etch.
have 4 renard boards, but havent populated them with components for this years display.
Thanks Brian for your volunteer lighting hobby interests
Rice66

Virtus

12-22-2007, 03:26 PM

Brian,
I had no idea such a community existed in the summer of '06 when I decided I could build low voltage switched relays to control my lights. I was actually researching .Net output dlls when I stumbled over a note from KC about his successful use of .Net in Vixen. A full afternoon of reading later and I had found he had already written (and made downloadable no less!) exactly the type of interface frontend, plugin modularity, and hardware independence I was going to try to write. Last year I got started with 3 Kit 74s and built 21 mini trees to test syncronizing to music. This year I couldn't let the 3 left over channels go unused so I built a 15' ft tall 18 rope light tree alternating around the 3 channels to see if it would look like it was spinning. It worked great and I am truly hooked. I have been too chicken to participate in the forums (though I think I have read the entire thing both here and in it's previous home) but this year I wanted to join in the discussion and really adopt the DIY implementation concepts that dominate here: Vixen based commands, simple interfaces to controllers, distributed A/C switching, and the thing I want to try next, dimming.
Thanks to everyone here who participates so openly and I look forward to seeing how this hobby develops in the future.

Greg in Canby

12-22-2007, 03:51 PM

Welcome!

Get ready for an "E" ticket ride into the world of blinky flashy.

Greg in Oregon

wbuehler

12-22-2007, 04:08 PM

Welcome

Bill

I'll try not to fry

12-22-2007, 07:27 PM

I found this site through a link on you tube. I was looking at haloween displays. I came across the video which had a light show and thought that would be awesome to do for Christmas also. Sho I started googling light shows and ended up here. Therefore giving birth to my new obsesseion.

prof

12-22-2007, 08:54 PM

I read an article in an Ausie computer magazine about computer controlled xmas lights. That led firstly to Vixen and Computer Christmas, then on to this site.

acewingman

12-23-2007, 03:26 PM

In 2005 I saw the Wizards of Winter video of Carson Williams home from Mason, Ohio and from that point on I was determined to figure out how to do that to my display. My determination led me to computerchristmas.com and here I am today trying to keep up with all the new developments...Thanks for all the assistance over the past couple years!

By the way, here is an interview with Carson if you are interested...
http://www.wgmd.com/SOUNDS/NEWS/HOLIDAYLIGHTS-11-29-05.mp3

edrpepper

12-24-2007, 12:55 AM

I found the vixen sotware from the http://www.ksochristmaslights.com/ website.

I was searching for an intro to computerized lights and Anarchtica had a great 8 port tutorial on his site. Anarchtica recommended using the vixen software to control the lights.

12-24-2007, 05:15 AM

In 2005 I saw the Wizards of Winter video of Carson Williams ...

same here. someone at work sent me the link to the video. i took a look and dug around a bit on the web and ended up at computerchristmas. i then went cold on the automated xmas lights idea (not really sure why). I have just recently picked up the urge again and going back to computerchristmas then led me here to this forum.

This time though i'm going to go through with a display for xmas 2008. I have two young kids who just love looking at lights around our suburb every year. I can't wait to see there faces next year - look what dad's done :D

RussSTman653

12-24-2007, 08:33 AM

I was googleing how to control your lights with a computer and this was the best site I could find.

dmcole

12-24-2007, 04:50 PM

2006: See "What's With That Christmas House" on HGTV. Say to self, "Self, need to do more Christmas lights."

2007: See "What's With That Decked Out Christmas House" on HGTV. See Annalisa, aka "Crazy Christmas Light Lady," who sez she's using PC to control LEDs. Computers? LEDs? Right up my alley. Do Google search for "Crazy Christmas Light Lady" and find her site. Realize she's using commercial product; ugh; I'm a DIY kinda guy. Google "diy christmas light controls." Find Vixen. Find DIY Christmas. Hooked.

Realization: LEDs not quite there, price-wise. Cleaned out two local Targets of 40% 100-string minilights in R, G & B. Will be lurking there again on Weds, on theory they'll restock.

Dilemma: Want dimming, can't decide between Lynx and Renard.

Happy Christmas Eve and everybody have a good tomorrow.

\dmc

Penfold

12-26-2007, 09:56 AM

I stumbled onto this site after discovering the computer christmas website. There was a lot of mention of coop board and I searched yahoo for "Renard 64 Coop" and that is when I found this site :mrgreen:

eschnell

12-26-2007, 10:44 AM

How I started? I saw a link to a WikiHow article, which than lead me to Computer Christmas. Then Here.

duk

12-26-2007, 12:21 PM

I asked a question about Xmas lights in a PC forum and was linked to the vixen site, then I found my way here.

deplanche

12-28-2007, 12:00 PM

I was trying to find some user reviews on the GE Lights and Sounds of Christmas that I bought at Home Depot just after thanksgiving. It worked fine for a week or two, them the music wasn't going thru all the songs, it wouldn't turn on all the time or would turn off spontaneously, and even was able to hear a FM radio station thru the speaker when the volume was turned down. Anyway, wanted to see if others had problems before I determined if I was going to return or exchange. One link lead to another on that, and I ended up here. After reading thru the info here decided to return that so I can build my own to control more channels and use my own music. (Afterwards found out that they were sold out and I couldn't have exchanged anyway.)

YSEN

12-28-2007, 12:19 PM

Love the site!!! I found it by searching "Computer Christmas Lights" on google. Glad I found it!!!

Trip

12-28-2007, 12:25 PM

While searching for PLCs for work related reasons I stumbled upon computerchristmas. Thus my new obsession was born.

nhphantom

12-28-2007, 03:10 PM

A link from the efx-tek forum and got interested.

David

jeff.ott

12-29-2007, 12:28 PM

Brian:

I got the idea after seeing the Miller commercial last year. I'm always researching something on the internet and figured if someone has done it it will be on the net. Found the computer christmas forum then some posts I believe from you lead me to the original Vixen Support forum. Well the rest is history. Thanks for your hard work and effort and all the others too: Sean, KC and Jayson and everyone else who posts information for general consumption.

NanoWit

12-29-2007, 10:03 PM

December article in Nuts & Volts magazine about Vixen. From the Vixen site there is a link to here.

SgtPepper

12-30-2007, 01:14 AM

To tell the truth, I don't really remember how I found it. :) I remember looking at planet christmas, but I didn't come here from there. I'm glad I did find it, though.

Hope that helps :P

synnie

01-01-2008, 04:09 AM

Hi all, i guess like everyone else i found Computer Christmas then Planet Christmas, googled more and found different websites that people had on their displays then looked around for what i could use to do mine.Not being a whizz with a soldering iron to make the relays and boards i cheated, went the NI PCI DIO96 way with a CIO ERB 48 relay board... Vixen was my choice of program so delved into KC's world a lot more...till i found i couldnt use the PCI board with Vixen..but as per usual for KC he came up trumps and prodeuced a plug in for the PCI boards. From then it was just natural progression to DIY Christmas when it came online...i still run through Vixen Forum if i have a problem to solve. And the soldering skills have improved.....

mikematz1

01-01-2008, 11:23 PM

I found the Computer christmas site from youtube and then they lead me to you. I have read all the how-tos on computer christmas and alot of the articles in your wiki.

badblood70

01-02-2008, 12:08 AM

After reading alot of the howto's and whatnot there, I stumbled across vixenlights.com. The wiki for vixen is hosted on christmasinshirley.com, which led me to all of you.
This is how I found it.

Dave1

01-05-2008, 10:48 AM

I started in xmas lighting animation several years ago and the place to find info was PlanetChristmas and Drew Hickman's site. I was using home-built Basic Stamp computer modules and basic programming to control things because the only software around was Drew's Dasher and it only ran on OS2.
I got away from doing anything new for a few years and my stuff is old. So I went looking for new material and found a link to ChristmasinShirley on the PlanetChristmas forum which led me here. This is a great site. Thank you very much for supporting this resource for us illumiholics.

BuzzLightyear

01-17-2008, 12:12 AM

tonypgst

01-17-2008, 11:44 AM

Google search of some sort and I found Computer Christmas. Then made my way here.

WWNF911

01-20-2008, 02:07 AM

This past Christmas I was truly inspired by a christmas light show I found locally. I did several searches and found this site after following a link I found on Computer Christmas. However, I must give credit where credit is due. Admittedly things didn't start to click for me until I found Xmus' video tour's on Youtube. I have been hooked on this site ever since. Great Job Dave! and Thanks.

Leon

KayentaJane

01-20-2008, 11:29 PM

Well now... I don't recall what inspired me to google for animated christmas lights, but that led me to computer christmas, then to vixen, then to here. I must admit that this is more user friendly than many of the other sites. I can navigate around here easily, but continually got lost at some of the other sites I visited before stopping here.

crazylightlady

01-21-2008, 12:27 AM

Was in a different Christmas forum which had links to lor and d-light , that got me interested to the point i was trying to figure out if I should go with one of them or a different system. On the original christmas site I found a link on how to make strobes with LED's. This led me to the Crazy Christmas Lady's website, at the bottom of that page was a note to please don't link this to christmas in shirley website. Being the nosy sort, I had to check it out and here I am.

If you're referring to my site crazylightlady.us, my request is not to post any of my how-tos on any of the TexasChristmasLight forums or any of their other controlled sites. I have no problem sharing my discoveries freely without restrictions, that's why my how-tos are available on my site with no log-in requirements. If you have any questions, please feel free to pm or e-mail me.

aussiephil

01-21-2008, 06:48 AM

Brian

the forums are great, i'm sure that anything you add further will be effectively icing on the cake.

One thing though, with the number of Aussie's on the site it might be usefull for a section for us to post just on aussie sources of lights and the whole 24v/36v issues. New people like myself would find this extremely useful.

Cheers
Phil

daviddth

01-21-2008, 07:08 AM

I have no problem sharing my discoveries freely without restrictions

Thats cause you are such a nice caring person CLL :)

Seriously thats why I perfer here (and the chat room - come on and visit people!) over the 3 or 4 other Chrissie light places I visit on the net - it's a good natured bunch of people that are willing to help, even go out of their way to help like CLL said above - ask & she will help in PM... No cost, no public fanfare, just help people 1 on 1.

It's fun, it's interesting & it's only 10 & a bit months till light on. Get moving!

BuzzLightyear

01-21-2008, 08:35 AM

If you're referring to my site crazylightlady.us, my request is not to post any of my how-tos on any of the TexasChristmasLight forums or any of their other controlled sites. I have no problem sharing my discoveries freely without restrictions, that's why my how-tos are available on my site with no log-in requirements. If you have any questions, please feel free to pm or e-mail me.

I was wrong wrong wrong and should never work from just my memory:-? I am a not worthy and humbly prostrate myself for my public lashing.

Which brings up a question. How did I get here? That was one thing my parents never explained.

Crazy Light Lady, I am very sorry for any problems I may have caused. I will try to be more accurate in the future. I have also sent an apology via PM.

Buzz

lbro

01-21-2008, 04:37 PM

Some really nice tall guy came to my house a couple times with home etched SSRs and computers and lights and sequences and leaping arches and stories about Christmas lights and then he had this website and now I'm addicted...

Hey! Yer a pusher too!

Lou! Are you getting this? First he gets me addicted... then he steals my BFF... what gives?

Jeff

I just saw this Jeff, You're right, it was the tall skinny guy with the "LAWN GUY LIND" accent that brought us here. Never did trust him.

The site is going Great! Great job Brian.

Lou

Creg

02-05-2008, 05:07 PM

google ->computer christmas -> link to vixen -> evolution to DIYC

Jeff Millard

02-05-2008, 08:17 PM

I must admit that this is more user friendly than many of the other sites.

AMEN to that!
Jeff

fkostyun

02-06-2008, 12:59 AM

I was wrong wrong wrong and should never work from just my memory:-? I am a not worthy and humbly prostrate myself for my public lashing.

Which brings up a question. How did I get here? That was one thing my parents never explained.

Crazy Light Lady, I am very sorry for any problems I may have caused. I will try to be more accurate in the future. I have also sent an apology via PM.

Buzz

Buzz, this actually does not specifically refer to this site, but, its a reason for another sites terms and conditions. IE "do not click here and read (http://www.christmaslightscommunity.com/about/terms-and-conditions/)" and even more specifically about about who owns projects and ideas that are created.

Vadoo

02-11-2008, 05:35 PM

I found the site through Google. I cant remember if I found it off of computerchristmas.com or the other way around.

rlilly

02-11-2008, 08:22 PM

I am going to try and put some new big things together this summer for this site.

Quoting Kevin and Flounder...."Boy this is going to be GREAT"

How did you find this site?
As I recall the sequence went something like:
1) Googled "Light-O-Rama", as a neighbor in Nevada had a display using LOR.
2) Found 'Planet Christmas' and their Forums which led me to:
3) 'Computer Christmas' and their Forums which led me to:
4) This great site!

and it's been a downhill sleigh ride ever since........WHEEE!

XmasLightGuy

02-17-2008, 01:43 PM

I've been a PlanetChristmas member since at least 2000 (so its way back around then
when i found out you could control lights with a computer)

This year there was a thread on PlanetChristmas that mentioned some of the various
lights forums (never really thought to go looking for others). I went and checked them
out just to see what was out there...on most i guess you could say i wouldn't agree
with their terms and conditions so i didn't join.

This one was fine & decided to join...just because looked like it might be interesting
(haven't looked around much yet tho)

Jeffrey

02-17-2008, 05:29 PM

How did you find this site?

jeffmill mentioned it over at the main L-O-R forums...

Rivenheart

02-18-2008, 10:43 AM

I found this site by chasing links, it started with a few from " Nuts & Volts " article , December issue

lightzilla

03-22-2008, 03:27 AM

Actually I am not sure how I came to this web site...aii I remember is typing in different words like controllers etc. I also came across this web sit: www.instructables.com lots of good ideas and learning at that site too.

Man I joined one of our Canadian Christmas web sites.....well there seems to be no interest during this time of the season in regards to Christmas. Dead to say the least. Perks up a few months before Christmas though.

I also found www.sivallighting.com its a good place to learn how to calculate amp loads.