Jeff's Christmas Lights Thread...

[Jeff]

As long as nobody minds, I figure I'll keep a log of the progress I'm making towards the 2008 show here. I like seeing threads where people work on something month after month, maybe even year after year. Makes seeing the finished product take on a whole different light because too many times people think things are easy... when in reality it takes loads of planning and work. (the guy who built his own Hummer comes to mind here)

Probably should start with a couple pictures of the 2007 Christmas Lights so I can come back here in 12 months and laugh.

Here are a few of my favorites...










And as of 12-27-07, here is a picture of the items that will be added next year...


Should be a good show next year...

To be continued...

[Helix_Von_Smelix]

My kids would LOVE for you to be next door to us

We may stop by next christmas

[Angus]

That just screams to be synced up to "Wizards of Winter"

[LAURENU2]

Oh the Day after Xmas light sales Smart

[Jeff]

Up to 29,140 new lights for next year because of those damn 75% off sales. Also picked up 2,000ft of 14 and 16 gauge wire and I'm starting to actually design the frame of the house. Figure I'm going to outline the house with electrical conduit... makes for a nice straight frame and I can easily fish my wires.

Theme next year will be "Silver and Gold". Everything I do will have at least Silver(aka White) and Gold(aka Yellow). Probably going to also include Red since it goes very well with the other two colors. Picked up ~2,000 Blue lights too just for the song "Blue Christmas".

Each color will be able to be controlled separately and each color will also be able to "chase" itself around the frame of the house. Lots of controller channels involved for this, but I've watched 60 or 70 videos so far and the ones that stick out use very subtle effects like that.

I completed the first 16-channel controller this past weekend and have started to do some very basic programming with it. DAMN cool unit and program. LOR(aka Light-o-Rama) is an awesome company and I can't wait to pick up 4 or 5 more 16-channel controllers from them in April when they have a major off-season sale.

Absolutely lovin' the new hobby!

[Moogie]

Wow Jeff! This is simply fantastic! I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next year. How did you get into this hobby? How long have you been at it?

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

Jeff, Dude first real chance I've had to look at the videos they are good very good but where's the Winter Wonderland one it's "no longer there"

Edit now they've ALL gone

[Jeff]

Hmmm... wonder if Vimeo had a little hickup yesterday because they are all there for me? Here is the link I clicked on...
http://www.vimeo.com/mainelights/videos

And thanks for the kind words. It's nice hearing/seeing people happy with something you've spent time on. Both my parents just light up when they watch the show in person... gives you that "warm fuzzy" feeling inside.

-Jeff

[edit]And I've re-done Miracle on 34th Street a few times now and for some reason Vimeo is making the sound out of sync. The file I upload looks/sounds good, then once it's on Vimeo, out-of-sync. I'm going to try adding a moment of dead space in the beginning to see if that helps.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

Yeah I retried it a bit later and got it but it was kinda late and I erm forgot to add that I had managed to get them all... Darn hiccup's like that - sent the link to a few people I know and they seemed to like it ..

[Digital Parasite]

Jeff, just so you know, I was talking to Richard Holdman about his new setup and let him know that I found out about him from you. He didn't know your website address so I gave it to him since he was interested in seeing what you had done. So he has probably visited it by now and has seen your work.

[Jeff]

Cool. I asked him on two separate occasions to make sure he didn't mind me using his sequences and both times it was just a "go for it" reply. Class act he is... class act.

-Jeff

p.s. If you don't mind, what were you talking to him about? Christmas light stuff? If so, are you going to be taking the leap soon?