While it's subject to change, I thought I would share our current layout plans for 2022... Highlights: Mega Tree moved to right side of the yard. Our real oak tree was blocking the view of it for many, and it was just in an awkward place for its size. We are also more-than doubling the..
Oak Hills Lights Power Consumption
Okay, the numbers are in... From Thanksgiving Day through New Year's Day we used a whopping 92.19 kWh of electricity. At $.12/kWh that's a total of $11.06! We did have a Raspberry Pi controller (Show Runner) and a small network switch running on separate (un-switched/monitored) power. Given the maximum wattage of the power supplies running..
More Power!
So the front of our house has a bunch of convenient outlets, but they are all run off the same 15A GFCI breaker. Knowing that likely wasn't going to be enough power for our show, we ran quite a bit of our 2020 show using extension cords from a set of 20A outlets we have..
Colorlight Controller Box Builds
Last week I posted about my P10 Column Build. One big problem I had was the Pi-P10 controllers I tried to use just didn't work. They had a terrible amount of flicker, and I was unable to find any actual support for them. So- my next most expensive option was to switch to Colorlight cards...
Raspberry Pi 5v Power Regulation
We have a lot of Raspberry Pis that run various elements of our shows, and powering them from "wall warts" in enclosures isn't always practical, especially since we are already running 5v power everywhere. The problem is- if you power them using the GPIO header, there is absolutely no internal voltage regulation. So- a voltage..
Column Matrix Builds
Last year, we lit up two of our three front porch columns with PVC pixel "poles". These worked really well: Pixel Columns This year we are making several changes. First, we got rid of the flat-tree in the middle of the front of the porch, so I needed to light up the middle column. Second,..
Add an OLED to a Raspberry Pi
It's kind of silly since they spend most of their time closed up in a weathertight box, but I really like the little OLED screens on the Kulp controllers. They give me a quick indication if the controller is working, so I can at least rule it out (for the most part) if there is..
Info Matrix (2021)
Last year we did a "Tune In" Matrix under our carport roof. It was my first DIY matrix, which actually turned out and worked pretty well after going through three revisions. It was functional, but just didn't fit in well with the rest of our display and I wanted something with more resolution. 2020 Tune..
2021 Mega Tree
I'm going to step through this process as we work on it, so this is a build-in-progress, which probably won't be done until Fall. So far, it's just in the planning stages, and we have the first part of it: 1/4" Laser (?) Cut Steel Tree Topper, from Jboards. We also have Boscoyo strips and..
G.E. Hattitude Quartet
Meet the biggest single prop we've bought to date: The Gilbert Engineering Hattitude Quartet! This thing is almost 4' in diameter, and consists of a wreath/spinner and close to a dozen singing face options (with or without Santa hat). We wanted a new "centerpiece" above the porch, to take the place of the star on..
FrankenPower Mk. III
FrankenPower Mark I-II used mechanical relays that were connected to conventional outlets. They were bulky, probably not very safe, and had to be placed in a tote to try to keep them protected from the weather. One of the original mechanical relays failed almost immediately upon use. Mark III uses an 8-channel SSR board and..
2020 Show Post-Mortem and 2021 Plans
Well, it's mid-January and things are still getting organized and packed up as we plan for this year's show. The roof outlines won't be coming down until the weather improves, but almost everything else is either hung up somewhere or crammed into a tote for storage. We even already got our first order of pixels..
5v vs. 12v Pixels
This is one of the most divisive arguments you will find online among folks in the Pixel hobby, perhaps more-so than where to buy your pixels and what connectors you "HAVE" to use. Here is my take on it... This is all my opinion. For some reason a lot of folks think 12v is the..