Tech Specs
One of the most common questions we get is "How many lights do you have?" Others include how do we get it to match the music, how do we get it to play on the radio and how much wire do you have. To see how we got started back in 2007 CLICK HERE to see how we did it.
The light count usually increases a little every year. For 2011 we had close to 126,000 lights. We are not sure yet on 2012, but we have some definite ideas. Time and money will be the determing factor.
Getting the lights to match the music is called "sequencing" by us light geeks. We have a series of "light controllers" that are circuit board 16 channel controllers. A channel can control one or more lighted items in the display. For the most part, every single item in our display has its own channel.
The controllers are controlled by the software that comes with them by Light-O-Rama. We pick a song and use the software to determine what we want to come on and when during the song. The computer runs the software and feeds data to the controllers. The controllers turn on lights in the order that we specifiy. That is is SHORT SHORT version.
To build a single sequence can take anywhere from 1-3 weeks depending on the length of the song and the types of effects.
The "radio station" is not really an actual station. We use an FM transmitter that you can buy from any electircal hobby shop. It broadcasts a very low power signal for about 500-1500 feet only. We use an adapter from the headphone jack of the computer to the transmitter which then broadcasts it over the station we choose.
How much wire? That's a tough one since wire is not limited to extension cords. There is wire in the light strings themselves, wire to feed circuits and outlets and wire from the panel box to each controller. The extension cords alone are aproximately 5.3 miles. If you total all the wire, a conservative guess would be another 21 miles.
CLICK HERE for a single summary PDF file
CLICK HERE for the Full Excel Spreadsheet