Type yI have been inundated with questions about the show, so I am adding some facts that you might find interesting.


1. 80,000 Plus lights in the display

2. 19 Renard output boards with 24 dimmable channels each giving us 456 total channels of control.

3. The show is controlled by a computer (P4 processor, 1G mem, 8 port expansion card) running on XP.

4. The software for creating and running the show is called Vixen. It is freeware available from
 www.vixenlights.com This is a great program that is well written and has great support.

5. The Mega tree (Big tree on the right) is 20 feet high, has a total of 24,000 lights in 5 colors, plus a 3D star on the top, a string of 12 strobelights, and 6 lighted presents under the tree.

6. 15 3ft Mini trees each with 2,000 lights in 5 colors plus a small star on top

7. 10 2ft Micro trees with 300 clear lights each

8. 4 arches with 10ea 100 light strings and 10ea 50 light strings for a total of 1500 clear lights each
These were made by wrapping the lights onto 3/4" Diameter electrical PVC conduit (2ea 10' each arch) and extending all the wires to reach the controllers. (10 wires each side of arch)

9. 24 candy canes with 100 clear lights each

10. 63 snow flakes in 3 sizes , 100, 50, and 20 clear lights

11. 12 palm trees wrapped with 4 channels of 200 clear lights (800 total on each tree)

12. Merry Christmas sign using 1500 multi colored lights

13. 8 icicle strings (4 clear 4 blue) mounted on the front of the house

14. 3 colors of C9 bulbs on the front eves and 3 uprights on the front of the house

All of the snowflakes and candy canes were made from 3/8 plywood cut on my Home built CNC router from programs generated from my own cad designs. After the routing was done, they were painted and lights were installed and glued in place.

I first started looking at commercially made controllers, they were much too expensive for me, so I started looking at alternatives. I stumbled upon a great site with many knowledgeable people called www.doityourselfchristmas.com This site has people who openly share knowledge and hardware designs. I started buying bare boards from one of the members (www.kostyun.com) and built them myself. My display currently uses 19 of these boards.

These boards are controlled directly by the computer through 7 com ports. Each channel (all 456 of them) gets refreshed 20 times per second (50 msec) 

In order to hear the music the lights are synced to, the line outputs of the computer are connected to a low powered FM stereo transmitter and are transmitted on 96.1mhz

Currently I am running 7 songs, for a total of 22 minutes. 
Programming takes me anywhere from 3 to 6 hrs for each minute of the show depending on speed and complexity of the routines.