Christmas Light Show

Click on a thumbnail to see a larger picture.  Interested in construction pics?  Scroll down to next table showing pictures of how some of the stuff looked like when I was building it.  The control system is on the right side, also below.

The whole yard ground.jpg (23616 bytes) Ground lights by foundation of house flowers.jpg (12854 bytes)  
Nativity Scene.  happynewyear.jpg (26303 bytes) Antique sign, reads Merry Christmas on other side snowflakes.jpg (39132 bytes) Snowflakes, run by 6809 computer, everyone's favourite. Story
angelheadcu.jpg (50994 bytes) Angel head, from Nativity Scene

 

 Image009.jpg (31240 bytes)   star1.jpg (22505 bytes) Star, close up.
jesusmary.jpg (46090 bytes) Close up of Jesus and Mary cones.jpg (36205 bytes) "Cones", each with 100 lights or so, rotating fluorescent inside.Story starlongshot.jpg (34532 bytes) Star, showing position on roof
    lotsalights.jpg (29277 bytes) Lotsa lights videomon.jpg (32580 bytes) Monitor on lawn...what's so unusual about that?  Ran countdown to "lights on" program.
flowers.jpg (31041 bytes) Flowers made from neon wire. manylights.jpg (42462 bytes) Lotsa lights island_monoliths.jpg (13279 bytes) Island Lights. 
gate.jpg (39370 bytes) Neon wire on gate meteor.jpg (6787 bytes) Meteor, one of 50 lights lit.  Story greenisland.jpg (38268 bytes) "Island" lights, had 3 colors flickering in and out, here they're green. 
lightrope_tree.jpg (13200 bytes) Light ropes bigtreeview.jpg (45290 bytes)   redisland.jpg (38442 bytes) "Island" lights, had 3 colors flickering in and out, here they're red
chandeliers2.jpg (36674 bytes) "Chandeliers" faded in and out with 3 different colors.  plumtree.jpg (17315 bytes) Plum Tree.  provox_to_lanterns.jpg (15828 bytes) Light ropes, cones in the back.  Taken with digital camera...and I moved.

Construction Pics                                                                                                                                 Control System

5chandl.jpg (22159 bytes) Monoliths.  Each has 3 boards like that shown on right.  Each board has 8 incandescent 7-segment readouts on it.  Each of the 7 segments was lit up sequentially chande1.jpg (6605 bytes) one of 15 incandescent displays from the "monoliths" at left  Total elements per board= 8x7=56 wirelooms.jpg (29237 bytes) My nice wiring.  All the wires are oversized for their function and I could have used serial comm to have fewer wires...but I used what I had.
cdcomp1.jpg (8669 bytes) Back of one of my flowers.  Each flower had about 30 LEDs on it and each LED was wired individually to this sequencer board.

 

     cu_terms_rear.jpg (23292 bytes) Back of the control panel showing wiring to Cannon connectors
xmascd_b.jpg (10691 bytes) Another shot of the back of the flower     out_controlpanel.jpg (17378 bytes) Relay cabinet outside.  Had 2-16 triac o/p boards and 8 relays.  Ran on 220 volt split circuit
mousse.jpg (8778 bytes) Flower "centers" inside desert containers.     triac2.jpg (12022 bytes) One of the 16 triac o/p boards
boards.jpg (5819 bytes) Sequencing boards for the flowers.  Used 555 timers 'cause I got lots of them.     triac3.jpg (12212 bytes)  
cab_power_supplies.jpg (24838 bytes) 3 power supplies, with 4th as spare.  5 volts, 12 volts, 24 volts scr_seq.jpg (11023 bytes) Not sure what this mess is, but it looks like some board jerry-rigged to perform another function. btm_of_cabinet.jpg (18039 bytes) Control panel and simulators so I could see what was going on outside.
cdboard2.jpg (7570 bytes) Back of one of the sequencer cards     6809.jpg (17218 bytes) Top of control panel, above the view shown in previous picture above.  This is the computer that ran the Snowflake display
litebri1.jpg (10703 bytes) "Cones" during construction.  These lights didn't work out so I replaced them with a rotating fluorescent light assembly.     backwiring_wide.jpg (18458 bytes) Wiring at the back of the control panel.