See The Lights!

DMX Basics - updated 8/16/10

"Behind the Scenes"

An in-depth look at how we do some things. If you want to see something posted, send us an email and let us know.

Animating the Lights to the Music - To date, we have used a product called Light O Rama (LOR). LOR has 2 aspects, software and hardware. Software wise, there is a "Suite" of tools that we leverage, but the one of most interest is the Sequence Editor (SE). This is very much like Microsoft Excel. The SE allows me to import a song in either MP3 or WAV format. I can then view the audio wave form and leverage several wizards to find the beat of the song. I also have to identify, and embed all the lights that need to blink or flash. We call these "channels" These all have names. In 2009, I had 394 channels that I could do something with. Looking at the picture of the SE interface in the picture below, you see the song time across the top, and channels down the left side. You are only looking at about 4 seconds of the somg and only 35 channels. Notice the scroll bars. Each channel is color coded. If appropriate, they do match the color of the light string, such as Red - Green - Blue - White. Multi color strings are shown in pink. Currently, it takes me about 10-15 hours per MINUTE of music to sequence. There are wizards that help identify the beat of the song, but a lot of time goes into listening for, and being able to capture details in the song, like guitar and piano riffs etc.... This is why it takes so long.

To give me a feel for my display layout, I create a "Light Bright" image of my house and yard. There are ways to make this look better, by embedding pictures, but with my yard layout, that is not super practical. So I stay simple. While it may be confusing to you, it does give you a perspective of the lot I live on. I am on a corner lot, so I have 2 viewing angles. In 2010, this picture will radically change as I am revamping the display next year.

When I play the song, and watch this Animation Window, I can see the different light strings turn on and off according to the SE window. Watching this, I can get the song to about 95%. I then have to go outside when the display is up to see the song in motion, then make edits. I do this on the night before I "Light Up" for the season. This of course is after a thorough check of all channels has happened to ensure I plugged everything in right! Next we have to talk about the Hardware interface of LOR. If you look at the picture below, the "Controller" as we call it is a printed circuit board that has some solid state triacs that control the lights. A Controller will have 17-18 cords plus a communications CAT5E network cable coming out the bottom. 16 of the cords are plugs that the lights go into. 1-2 cords are power plugs. So each Controller will have 16 Channels assigned to it, hence 16 plugs. I had 24 of these Controllers in the yard, or on the roof. Lastly, the computer that controls this, has a USB cable that plugs into an RS485 communications device. The RS485 either then plugs directly into the 1st Controller in the network, or in my case to a wireless device that talks to several other wireless devices in the yard attached to clusters of Controllers. See the diagram below.

The LOR software allows me to create a "Show", which is just a Playlist. I then schedule what time the show starts and ends every night of the week, and there you have it, a show that does not need a person to actually launch, it does it all by itself. Pretty cool eh?

How do the songs play on the radio? - This is quite easy. I have a low power (10mw) FM transmitter. See the picture below. This is a very small unit, about 4 1/2"x3 1/2" x 1"that can actually broadcast RDS as well. RDS is the radio text you see streaming on the newer radios. I do not have the RDS working yet, I am torn. I want visitors to watch the display, not the song title on the radio screen! The computer (laptop) that runs the show has a cable I plug into the audio jack (headphones). Then plugs into the FM transmitter, that goes out to a dipole antenna I have on my roof, and "Viola" a FM radio station. The FCC allow homeowners to broadcast into the space immediately around their house. Anything beyond a few hundred feet is considered illegal. I have to find bland space on the FM frequency spectrum to broadcast so that you can hear it clearly.

How do the Leaping Light Arches (LLA's)work? - These are made up of 2 10' sections of 1 1/4" electrical PVC conduit. I mate the 2 10' pieces together, space the ends 14' apart, drive rebar into the ground at an angle, then slide the ends onto the rebar, which gives them the arch height of about 6'. Each 10' piece, has 7 sections of lights. Each section wrapped with 100 LED minis. This give me a whopping 1400 lights per complete arch. As you can see from the picture, I run a wire harness under the arch that plugs into each section. At night you never see this harness. The magic happens in sequencing that make them flow like they do. It is just a sequentially staggered lighting of each section on the arch The picture below is one of the more complex patterns I have for the LLA's inside the Sequence Editor. You are also only seeing 3 of the 4 total LLA's in the yard.

Genesis 1:14-15

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky, to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth