• Fox 45 of Dayton ran a segment on my light show.  Check out the video online!
• WGN posted my video on their website, under Viral Videos!
• Buzzfeed - some fantastic comments here
• Blog post on Dayton Daily News
• My “I’ve Gotta Feeling” has gone viral on YouTube! As of 12/21/2009@ 7:39pm it’s garnered 53,935 views!
  

Wow. First just let me say thanks to the thousands of people that have watched the videos and come to see the house!  This has been a huge success, and I’ve been happy to bring a little Christmas cheer, and UD Pride to so many people around the world!

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end at some point.  And that point is tonight.  Wednesday 12/16/2009 from 6:00pm to 10:00pm will be the last showing for 2009.  So tomorrow at 9:30pm will be the last time to see this until next year, because I need to take everything down before we leave for Christmas break.

I need to extend a thanks to a few people who helped make this a success:

• First is Derek Gerdeman.  We spent countless hours freshman year sitting around watching Youtube videos of these amazing light shows, and just imagined the day that we could do it ourselves.  Derek helped with planning this out, and spent countless hours on the roof with me getting everything put up.
• Bryan Hoersten also spent a lot of time with me twisting light strands together, and putting stuff on the house.  He and Derek spent a long time making the UD logo, that made this light display awesome, and hit home for so many UD Alumni.
• The guys of 202 Lawnview – Due to location, I was unable to put these lights up on my own house in Dayton this year, and these guys let me use their house as my canvas.  From letting us climb out their window, to putting up with the same songs playing every half-hour for weeks, I can’t thank them enough.  They were incredibly cooperative, and I greatly appreciate it.
• Everyone at DoItYourselfChristmas.com – There is an incredible group of people who are unbelievably dedicated to this hobby, and have put together some amazing projects.  All the guys who wrote the PIC firmware, designed PCBs, organized group buys, and of course KC who wrote Vixen; I couldn’t have done it without them.
• Mike Malloy, who took the videos with me with his camera/tripod.

Thanks again! I’m looking forward to next year with goals of 48 channels and 10,000 lights!

FAQ:

Q: How long did it take you?
Short A: “A long time…”
Long A: I spent around 20 hours building and wiring the controller (which should go quicker next time!)  Probably 6 hours just designing/planning (erasing, re-drawing…)  Easily spent 60 hours sequencing music.  At least 12 hours constructing UD, twisting lights together, etc.  And probably another 12 hours actually putting all the lights up, wiring, testing, and re-installing windows :-\   This gives us a total of around 110 man-hours, some of which go to Derek and Bryan.

Q: How much did all this cost?
Short A: “I don’t want to know…”
Long A: If you look back at the Background post, I spent around $80-100 on my 24 channel controller, after all the wiring, etc.  This is substantially less expensive than a commercial Light-O-Rama system with as many channels.  I had hardly any Christmas lights going into this, so I had to buy almost all of them this year, probably upwards of $100.  And all the accessories (mainly a few hundred zip-ties) add up, as well.  (Donations accepted!)

Q: Are you going to do this next year?
Short A: “Absolutely!”
Long A: I’m obsessed, and will probably do this until I die.  Next year, Derek, Bryan and I will be 5th-year seniors, and will have a house in the Ghetto ourselves.  I’ve already got some parts for another Ren24, and big goals in mind.  It depends on which house we get, but my goal is to more than double this year’s show: At least 48 Channels, and 10,000 lights – any help there is appreciated

Q: This is great, I think you’re amazing…  Can we go out to dinner?
A: Facebook me.

So, Derek and I spent almost 4 hours the day after the first show tweaking the sequences.  They look a lot better in my opinion.  And I’ve uploaded them to Vimeo this time.  The site isn’t as sweet as youtube, but I shouldn’t have to worry about any stupid copyright issues.  Enjoy!

Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Carol of the Bells:

Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Wizards in Winter

Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling

Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Siberian Sleigh Ride

Well, after what seemed like a million hours of work, my roommates Brian, Derek, and I got all the lights up and wired.  Here’s the first show, from Friday night:

Simpson’s THX Intro:

Trans-Siberian Orchestra -- Wizards in Winter:

Blue Man Group -- TV Song:

I have two more songs, Carol of the Bells, and Siberian Sleigh Ride, but Youtube refuses to let me upload them, because of copyrights on the audio.  So I’m going to post them to another site.

Also, Derek and I spent a few hours on the sequences Saturday morning, and made them look a lot better.  I have yet to take video of the updated sequences, but will upload them as soon as I do!  Thanks for checking out my show!

So, I got a little antsy, and decided to test out my Renard dimmer before I got all the lights up.  Typical TSO Wizards in Winter (although sequenced quite well, if I may say so my self)

So, this is a little outdated, but I thought I’d share pics of the construction of my Ren24.  All the information required can be found at http://www.kostyun.com/current-projects/renard24/.

Hey everyone!  I decided that it might be fun to blog about the progress of this project, so I set up a wordpress blog (love the new version, by the way!).

This blog/site is dedicated to the Christmas lights project I’ve started.  I’m sure you’ve all seen the animated Christmas light displays (like this one: Frisco Christmas Lights – Wizards in Winter).  Being an Electrical Engineering major, and avid fan of music in general, I figured it only fitting for me to get involved in this fun Christmas time activity as well.

I first ran accross the Youtube videos of the animated lights (like the one that Miller used in their Christmas commercial) back in 2006, with some friends in our freshman-year dorm.  I was addicted.  If I remember correctly, that guy used a commercial product known as Light-O-Rama.  Here’s the thing:  LOR controllers are expensive. Their 32-channel controller (with software) will run you $700 (we’re talking almost $22 per channel!)

So I started looking into coming up with my own controller.  I’d previously done some things with MIDI sequencing, and knew that it would be a good way to sequence digital MIDI events to an audio track.  After a little searching around on circuits websites, I came accross a PIC microprocessor-based design that converted an incoming MIDI stream to 24 digital outputs.  Run those to 24 relays, and should be pretty simple!

Well I played around with a few designs, and once I saw more videos of controllers that incorporated dimming, I became dissatisfied with my current plan and abandoned it.  Lights ramping-on and -off just looked too cool.  After more research, I stumbled upon something I couldn’t believe I’d never found before: DoItYourselfChristmas.com.  A suprisingly large group of people that designed, and built their own Christmas light hardware!  So I read, and read, and read, before deciding that the “Renard” platform was definitely the way to go, including full dimming!

Advantages over LOR:

• Cost – I spent about $70 on parts for my Renard 24.  Now we’re talking; about $3 per channel.
• Software – The de-facto standard for sequencing/controlling software amongst the DIY Christmas guys is Vixen.  This is a modern, feature-filled software package written in C# / .NET by a man under the title ‘KC’.  It’s free for anyone to use and is truly remarkable.  Check out VixenLights. com to see for yourself.
• Experience – Come on, I’m a computer geek! Of course this is going to be fun building/wiring this myself!  Besides, I’d never soldered an entire PCB on this scale before, so might as well learn now!

So, I jumped in and got in on co-op buy of one Ren24 PCB, and one set of components (Thanks, WakeFan!).  Construction to follow…