Ask Slashdot: Best Wireless LED Light Setup for 2015?

An anonymous reader writes I want to get a jump-start on next year's Christmas by wiring up my mother's gnome garden for a Christmas light show. I need a setup that can use wireless LED lights and speakers, the lights using a custom sequence set to music, that can be controlled remotely indoors to go off on a schedule, say every hour. Do you know of an off-the-shelf setup that is cheap and works seamlessly, especially for someone with little to no coding or custom building experience?

Comments

There is nothing NOT wrong with this question.

[mckwant]

Bah, humbug, AND get off my lawn.

Re:There is nothing NOT wrong with this question.

[msauve]

You'd think he could just have his mother give every gnome a flashlight, then train them to put on a coordinated display.

Wrong site

[plover]

Try asking on http://www.hackaday.com./ Lots of people there doing exactly that kind of stuff.

Time+Luck

[Liquidretro]

As someone who went DIY and built one of these (Highly modified, including FM transmitter) about 5 years ago, it's good of you to start now, it takes much more time than just putting some lights in and set it up. Not sure what exists now but remember you need to power each "Station" so not sure how much wireless gains you. There are forums for people devoted to these things, and I suggest starting there. It will also matter on how many channels you want as well as how custom you want the sequences to be. There use to be a Mr Christmas setup that was about $150 that just kind of randomly flashed a small number of lights almost randomly to music. Much easier but not a very good sequence either. Cheap is relative and LED's are not generally cheap. Let us know a budget when you can.

At least give it 6 months!

[rstanley]

See what new technology is available, THEN start planning what you will do! ;^)

Light O Rama

[Anonymous Coward]

I use a Light O Rama setup http://www1.lightorama.com

It is not wireless but is very easy to setup and can be used with regular Christmas Lights.

They have a software suite that is pretty easy to use and you can do some pretty cool stuff with.

Re:Light O Rama

[Sarten-X]

Yep.

Light-O-Rama is the go-to choice for pre-built kits for newbies (or professionals who need UL certification). The well-beaten path is to begin with LOR, learn about what's possible by joining communities like Planet Christmas, and hone your sequencing skill - not too flashy, not too dull, and just below the threshold where your neighbors formally complain. After that, once you're comfortable with the idea of running a few hundred channels and a few tens of thousands of lights (or in short, once you're addicted), you'll find it's cheaper to switch to DIY kits bought in co-ops, running DMX or newer protocols.

You'll spend time soldering the boards together and building your own cases, but by that point it's a full-time hobby. Then you sell off your old LOR kits to the next round of newbies.

Re:Light O Rama

[wierd_w]

I'm glad that there's a COTS solution for this, but I suspect that a lot more control could be had with an actual logic controller or mini computer. Other than the soundboard/mp3 playback function (are there any good linux applications for this? I know there are many MP3 players that can be invoked from the console (eg, via an SSH session) but the soundboard would be a bit of an issue) a Raspberry Pi or a BeagleBone with a few diodes, transistors and resistors could drive a shitload of lights in obscene complexity. (Over 32 PIO lines on a beaglebone. Using a common ground and switched voltage sources, one could drive 32 strings of lights directly. Accessing the PIO pins is pretty easy, and can be done with a simple shell script; but this gets into programming, which the OP explicitly stated they wanted to avoid. Though I admit controlling all the pins in full parallel may be tricky. May need to sacrifice one of the IO pins to signal the voltage controller to activate/deactivate. That gives 31 strings, and 1 go/stop signal.)

I dont consider shell script all that painful though. Writing some kind of plugin for a commandline based MP3 player? that's gonna take more doing. Glad there is a COTS solution for the OP after-all.

The OP would stand to learn more using the beaglebone though. If he switched from parallel (easier to program) to a serial protocol, his same compute node could drive several million lights, but would need a much more sophisticated voltage switching board.

I am kinda surprised that there isnt already a sheild kit for this.

Re:Light O Rama

[Sarten-X]

TL;DR: There's a lot more to the craft than just wires and a board. This started as a short post, but turned into Light Shows 101.

I've been on the fringes of the community for a few years. If you're willing to touch a soldering gun, you can do far better than a single-board computer, though I'm sure I'm going to annoy some Slashdotters for suggesting such blasphemy.

First, consider your requirements: Lights, elements, power, control, sequencing, and sound. We'll tackle them in that order.

Lights are actually one of the tougher decisions to get started with. You have to decide between LED (brilliant intensity, saturated colors, low power, expensive) or incandescent (cheap, high power, warm glow), and what size you'll use (everything from surface-mount LEDs to full-size Edison bulbs). I know a guy who's used car headlights in a show, and there's been a few stage lights, too.

The problem with lights is the sheer number to be used. 32 strings are enough for one megatree (more on megatrees shortly). Consider that shows are measured in the thousands of individual lights, and the hundreds of channels. Mixing LED and incandescent lights is rarely a good idea, because of the severe difference in brightness. Even among the same type, different brands have different colored lights. Manufacturers also tend to cut the strings shorter every year, saving money on wire costs. What used to be a 30-foot string several years ago is now a 27-foot string. The result is that show builders will hoard hundreds of strings of lights from the same manufacturer and year, so any future element projects will have a consistent look. Communities will also organize occasional bulk purchases directly from manufacturers, ordering a whole shipping container full of lights.

The elements, though, are where creativity and construction skill really comes into play. You're effectively building a piece of modern art that usually has to survive snow, rain, wind, squirrels (who apparently love the taste of wire insulation), vandals (sadly), and both heat and cold. The elements start the show cold, but often (especially with incandescent lights) they'll have so much current running through them that by the end of the night they're warm enough to cause noticeable expansion.

There are a few standard elements, but every builder has their own technique. There are basic trees, where lights make a vaguely conical shape. With more wiring, you get megatrees, which have several steps of control, up to a single string per control channel, so you can animate spinning motions. In a smaller size, tomato cages with their legs welded together make great minitrees. A long piece of conduit, wrapped in lights (about 30 feet of lights per foot of conduit) can be bent and anchored to stakes, making arches. Chicken wire and zip ties are the perfect tools for laying out a more two-dimensional element. With a bigger budget, flamethrowers, projectors, lasers, water fountains, and robotic spotlights are all options.

With all those elements, electric power becomes a problem. LEDs make the problem much more manageable, but there's still the issue of distribution. There's a lot of extension cords involved, and possibly some very thick wires needed. Builders of big shows will often turn to buried cables and upgraded supply lines. I helped with a show that used a 100-amp line running to a buried box in the back yard, where a control box fed a set of distributor boxes through 50-foot 20-amp lines that were scattered around the area supplying the other elements.

Every outdoor circuit must be also protected by a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI), which will cut the power immediately if it shorts to ground. It's intended to protect a person who accidentally grounds a circuit, but with that many connectors out in the rain and snow, you can expect a GFCI to trip a few times a week.

Controlling that much power is the part that gets so much attention, but it's really one of the easiest aspects of the hobby. There are a few routes to go, fr

While you're out of the basement can you...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> I want to get a jump-start on next year's Christmas by wiring up my mother's gnome garden

This is mom. While you're out of the basement can you take out the trash?

DMX512

[Anonymous Coward]

Have a look at DMX512, it's a control standard for stage and architectural lighting. It's basically a wired standard, but it has wireless adapters. Since it's a standardized interface there's bound to be loads of interface hardware and control software. I don't know a lot about it myself, but a friend of mine uses it for his friends' band.

What's the point of wireless?

[jtara]

What is the point of "wireless"? You still need to power the lights.

You haven't said just what kind of "LED lights" you want to control. You mean a string of lights from CVS or Home Depot? You mean some individually-addressible, color-changing lights? Something else?

Since I have Insteon in home home, I'd just use these to control strings of lights:

http://www.smarthome.com/inste...

Re:What's the point of wireless?

[Osgeld]

if your not the one making the whole radio interface it may be

Re:What's the point of wireless?

[afidel]

What is the point of "wireless"? You still need to power the lights.

You haven't seen the LED light strings powered by PV panels and a LiPo battery pack? I'm planning to use some of these for some trees along the far side of my driveway, being able to sequence those lights would be cool.

Re:No Custom Building?

[peragrin]

On one hand I agree on the other I think of Lego mindstorms. Where there is money there is a way. I can see a company like Lutron doing this. Well maybe not Lutron as that particular company has a fire extinguisher shoved up its arse. But the concept is still valid.

What's the Big Deal?

[NEDHead]

Just tell the damn gnomes to do it or you'll kick them out.

Adding to naughty list...

[__aaclcg7560]

If whole neighborhoods switch over to wireless light displays for the holiday season, I'm sure hackers will have fun war driving by with their laptops.

Re:Adding to naughty list...

[Technician]

Some DMX wireless solutions are not WiFi. Only Artnet, E1.31, and related DMX over Ethernet protocols are able to be carried on consumer wireless links. Most hardware commercial solutions are spread spectrum frequency hopping. Links are more like paired Bluetooth than WiFi. As such they are in common use where high reliability is needed.

Re:No Custom Building?

[Slick_W1lly]

>which makes me think that there never will be a commercial solution

Quite the opposite. I've been 'thinking about' doing this for a couple of years now, and my research has led me to the conclusion that 'everyone' uses Light-o-rama commercial setup to do this.

It's not wireless, but I don't believe (other than the DMX solution DJ's use for their stage lighting) there's a wireless solution to be had. Even that 'solution' isn't actually wireless, since it uses wires for.. the power! Wireless dongles can be plugged into recievers at the light end - but to be honest, you're better off just going the light-o-rama route.

That solution works by giving you a 'squid' of power connectors, into which you plug your extension cords and it just.. turns them on and off. They give you some kind of application that you can use to sync the lights to your music - if you've ever made an animated thing in like Blender or Poser or Daz Studio you'd get right along with it - timeline.. flip this on at second 3, flip this off at second 5, turn the other on at second 10.. etc..

However, it's not cheap - by any standards. In controller hardware OR lights.

DMX

[kdub007]

In the performance industry, we control lights using a protocol called DMX (there are a couple other protocols out there, but DMX is by far the most common.) You could use something called "dimmer packs" to control standard LED Christmas lights. There are free software packages such as FreestylerDMX. You would still need to run power, but you can buy Wireless DMX receivers to avoid DMX cables. Cheap however? Well that depends on your definition of cheap. You can buy dimmer packs pretty cheeap...$40 each or so to (normally) individually control 4 outlets. Both on-off, and variable voltage. Cheap Chinese Wireless units are around $50/each, but you'd only need 1 per dimmer pack.

Re:DMX

[Technician]

1 wireless receiver can carry 512 channels. It is permitted to daisy chain a string of DMX devices off one wireless receiver.

Re:Arduino + C

[RenderSeven]

This is obviously some use of the term "off-the-shelf" that I wasnt previously aware of...

Re:No Custom Building?

[Sarten-X]

There's nothing that I'm aware of off-the-shelf to do this.

Light-O-Rama is as off-the-shelf as this gets, apart from tiny trinkets only suitable for lighting a single tree.

In addition, actually writing the lights sequences takes FAR more time than you think it will, which makes me think that there never will be a commercial solution because Joe Neighbor doesn't want to invest that kid of time into it.

LOR has decent-enough software for basic synchronizing. Last time I used it, it really wasn't suitable for controlling huge pixel fields, but anything simple was easy, like it's easy to go buy a tube of paint and a brush. The hard part is the art of good sequencing, and you're absolutely right about the time commitment. Every show is a custom layout, and should have a custom sequence. There are a few folks who publish their sequences for others to use, though, and with some fudging you can make them fit similarly-sized displays.

Re:1 yr away, little to no experience?

[Sarten-X]

The guy has one year to get his first year of experience. Plenty of time. After all, that's how we all started.

Have a look at this site

[mad zambian]

I haven't seen what you want on this site, but then I haven't been looking. There is a HUGE range of different areas there, so spend a bit of time having a look.
http://www.instructables.com/

No connections to the site, just amazed at some of the stuff people come up with. For anyone interested, subscribe to their RSS feed.
Random subjects from today;
Like lava lamps? Got a spare mason jar?
http://www.instructables.com/i...
This sounds delicious;
http://www.instructables.com/i...
Always wanted to know how to make an origami crane?
http://www.instructables.com/i...

You get the idea. There is bound to be something there that will do, or can be adapted.

The lights are only half of the story.

[Minwee]

You also need to find yourself a copy of "The Lost Christmas Eve" and an FM transmitter. Federal law requires that you be playing track four from that album at all times while operating any kind of christmas light display.

Re:1 yr away, little to no experience?

[ls671]

Great, except I live in Australia.

yep, pros use DMX. China relay packs cheap

[raymorris]

As parent said, almost all professional lighting, for stage and displays, uses the DMX protocol. Mobile and club DJs also. You can get a decent programmable DMX control board, like DJs use, for $100-$200 from a site like Cheaplights.com*. You can instead choose a USB-DMX converter for about $39. You don't need the expensive type of USB-DMX converter.

Be open to the possibility of running a wire or two to your DMX-controlled relay packs. In general, wireless is required for things that move around, such as your laptop, phone, etc. For anything that isn't mobile, wires are more reliable and simpler to troubleshoot. You CAN get wireless DMX; I just purchased a WiFly capable DMX board from American DJ for a church. I ignored the wireless capability and connected a cable.

* you can also find really expensive DMX lighting boards used for stadium-sized concerts. In comparison, the $125 one sucks, but the hottest nightclub in town, with the cool lasers and strobe lights, uses a $100-$250 controller.

Re:Arduino + C

[Lumpy]

Only for newbies.

Mine your own silicon and grow your own wafers and then process from there.

Easy answer.

[Lumpy]

Look up DMX lighting. Everything that is the REAL stuff is DMX controlled. If you want it easy to do and reliable, that is your answer.
Wireless is not going to happen, you are already running wires for the power, or were you expecting to erect a giant Tesla tower to power all the lights?

Re:Easy answer.

[Lumpy]

If you want it to be flakey go wireless.
If you want it to be flawless, go wired.

You are already running power, run the DMX wire along with it.

Re:Use a wireless router. No coding.

[Technician]

Adding wireless to Lights-o-rama or vixen is not that hard. Use one of the DMX over Ethernet solutions. Be aware there is a huge difference between DMX over CAT 5 and DMX over Ethernet. Don't confuse the two.

The first decision to make is based on what your controller software supports and what LED interface controller is chosen. The most supported protocols are Artnet and E1.31. I recommend E.131.

Uisng out of the box hardware, I would recommend a PC to run Lights-O-Rama or Vixen. Vixen is free.. hint hint. Lights-O-Rama has software for sale as well as some interfaces that work well for running power to conventional LED or mini lights. Unless you switch them to work on DMX512, then they don't play well with wireless. I highly recommend one of the LED controllers from Sandevices to create DMX for the interface as well as directly driving addressable LED pixels.. You can go assembled and tested or kit form. Off the shelf assembled and tested works great if you are using addressable LED pixels.

A quick note on routers. Not all routers are created equal. As popular as they are, DO NOT USE one of the Linksys 54G model routers. Visit the forums for compatible routers. The router must STREAM the DMX signal without pauses or your lights will run/pause like watching a streaming video on dial up. I have had great luck with the old metal box Buffalo routers with the single antenna. To test routers for compatibility look for ones that will do the following.

1 do LAN on a subnet other than 192.X.X.X. A router able to do 10.x.x.x.x or 2.x.x.x is a huge help and is part of the Artnet spec.
2 gef Artnetominator to view the packets in real time over the test router. Not all routers will smoothly stream without significant delays and pauses. http://www.lightjams.com/artne... This tool was most helpful in router selection from a collection of older routers.

So off the shelf wireless is simply a collection of PC, software, Router, and interface to the lights. When all are compatible, you are done.

Best starter system I've used

[Wrexs0ul]

I started down the fancy Christmas lights path last year after seeing a 12-string CCR tree based-on LOR (light-o-rama) that this guy made:

http://www.superstarlights.com/Sequences/Videos.php

LOR Technology is pretty simple and your IT knowledge will translate pretty well to get it setup. The gist is you're using a LOR network protocol over RS-485 (long-range serial) that itself is using CAT5/6 cable to work. This network needs a control node that's either a hardware device or (like most people) a computer running the LOR software package, both of which can work with an audio component.

The neat part about starting here is that there's translation hardware between LOR and the more widely used DMX protocol when you're ready to step-up to fancier shows. DMX gears tends to be cheaper because there's more of it (and more things you can control), but it'll also need a fair bit of comfort with stuff you can start-off learning by point-and-click in LOR. I've been playing with some DMX stuff this year that'll be in the show for December 2015, but didn't have the time to get it perfect on this go.

One thing to keep in mind: more fancy = more bandwidth. Single flashing strands don't use much traffic, but when you start looking at 150 LED strands where each pixel has RGB+intensity I'd recommend against going wireless.

Happy learning, and post a video!

DIY or kit?

[LoRdTAW]

Are you looking for a diy or a more off the shelf setup?

The most straightforward way for off the shelf might be to use a dmx (not the rapper) controlled lighting system. Very common and well documented protocol used to control lighting for commercial and entertainment setups. There are also a few others. Since it is also used extensively in the entertainment business, there might be software off the shelf that will sequence the lights and music. You can easily find usb-dmx controllers for well under a hundred bucks. Another bonus is there are also outdoor rated dmx lights and related components making it safe and easy for you.

Start here then read my rantings below: <url:http://www.instructables.com/id/arduilay/>

Why are you asking about wireless? What exactly do you want to be wireless? Each bulb or strand? Or, do you want the connection between your lights and controller to be wireless?

Either way you need to turn the lights on and off. For that you simply use relays. There are tons of arduino shields out there that feature a few 5 or 10 amp relays which are enough to drive a few strands of incandescent lights lights each. A zigbee shield can be used to make them wireless.

There are also plenty of simple usb controlled relay boards out there as well. I would go that route and possibly try to find one that is already in an enclosure with sockets and over current protection via a fuse or circuit breaker. There might be relay boards that are zigbee or wifi enabled but if you go wireless first: make sure you are not putting a non outdoor nema or iec rated box full of relays outside, exposed to the elements. The nema rating should be 4x and the iec ip rating should be 65 or better. My advice? Use extension cords and locate the relay box indoors.

The usb relay box should come with libraries that you can use to write your own software to control them. Many are just usb-serial devices that use a simple ascii protocol. Usually something like a command character like, followed by an address number for the relay and terminated with a carriage return. If you use an arduino there are probably simple i/o libraries for zigbee but you still might have to roll your own code for the arduino to glue everything together.

Remember for resistive loads like incandescent or basic led lights, watts = volts * amps. So if the relay is rated at 5 amps then the maximum wattage is 120 volts times 5 amps equals 600 watts maximum. If you live in a 230v country then you can double that if the relay is rated for use with 230-240v (they usually are but always check). Also be sure the total load can be handled by the outlet that you are plugging into. Back in the day when i used to get fancy my draw was around 16a. I used a heavy duty 12 awg cord that ran into my basement to a 20a dedicated circuit that came straight out of the panelbox.

If you are looking to control the brightness then it gets tricky. Led christmas lights normally are on a series string with basic current control using a resistor. That is why they have a slight flicker. Those can be dimmed using a few tricks. Ac is not easily varied without elaborate inverters using digital control. But if the load is mainly resistive such as incandescent or cheap led's then you can use a mosfet inside of a bridge rectifier to pwm the ac. Easier and better better than the old phase fired thyristor method of power control. The way it works is you wire a mosfet across the + and - dc "output" of the bridge. The ac terminals of the bridge are put in series with the load. This way you can pwm the ac waveform using a single mosfet. I have not used it outside of a simulator and have seen it only used once to control a tesla coil. But if the led's are current controlled then it won't work as the current controller looks to regulate the brightness of the led's by watching the current and switching the power on and off very rapidly to maintain a constant current. Led chris

Re:Arduino + C

[anagama]

Amusing and all that, but honestly, arduino led blinker projects aren't really all that much. It's basically hello world and the IDE comes with an example that clearly explains everything:

http://arduino.cc/en/tutorial/...

It really is basically plug and play -- plug in some LEDs to a pin and to ground and then light 'em up. Of course, if you want to do more complicated lighting up, the power is there if you want to use it.

Re:Arduino + C

[ZeroPly]

Arduinos are yesterday's news. Get a Raspberry Pi instead. If you get an Arduino you'll be programming in the stone age, when they say "C", they mean a barebones version suitable for teaching a 4th grader how to code. With a Pi, you can use Python, C++, Java, whatever. And that's in IDLE, not a barebones text editor. Plus you're running on Linux, so you can actually write daemons, use sockets, and so on.

Arduinos are good for showing complete newbs how to interact with hardware, but you'll be out of options pretty soon. I have both an Arduino and a Pi, but the only advantage the Arduino has is analog inputs. You get an MCP3008 DAC for your Pi for about $3.50, and tada - you're in business.

Re:Arduino + C

[RenderSeven]

There is a HUGE difference between blinking one LED, and running a light show with 1000's of LED's over a wireless link., or any link for that matter. I could do it with an Arduino, or a PIC, or a Raspberry, a Beowulf Cluster or anything else. And build the banks of addressable power relays, work out the wireless protocols, the addressing discovery system, macro language for syncing it with music, and ... whatever. A lot of work. Not even in the same time zone as flashing an LED using Arduino GPIO. Trivial as that is, or as capable as Arduino is, its hardly the 'off-the-shelf' answer TFA was clearly looking for. There may be an Arduino-based answer, but neither the GP or the blinker tutorial was it. The GP's -1 off-topic was clearly deserved.

Re:No Custom Building?

[djrobxx]

This isn't too far off of what a lot of the virtual pinball cab folks are doing to add light shows and other toys alongside their virtual pinball machine (currently controlled by emulated ROM). They've designed whole APIs that abstract hardware (arduino, cheap Sainsmart USB relays, LEDWiz, etc) from lighting commands and macros. It could be used with any combination of lighting controllers. There is a lot of off-the-shelf hardware that is designed for this purpose, including the amplifiers you can use to control more power hungry arrays of lights.

For the software that runs it, see the DOF project:

http://directoutput.github.io/...

Notice how it has a bunch of built in effects - that would be perfectly suited to this. It would probably be very trivial to modify this project to trigger off time codes instead of the ROM solenoid requests that it currently looks for to activate a sequence.

Re:Arduino + C

[servant]

Your just don't shop where some of the rest of us shop ;-D

Gnome garden?

[zzzz7777]

Gnome garden? bah! I want to get a jump-start on next year's Christmas by wiring up my mother's kde garden

Check out processors for signs/scoreboards.

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Since the Corsair RGB keyboard came out I have discovered that there are processors dedicated to managing signs.

You should look into those.