Because UTE fans at UH know everything… Rasperry Pi for Christmas lights

[UTE98]

Because you guys are all so darn smart I come here for input.

I’m contemplating getting a Raspberry Pi and starting to look at doing a very very basic Christmas tree lights and music set up for next Christmas (2018) with about 8-16 relays, how much work/learning will I have?

I’ve done some preliminary research and it appears to be pretty simple to hook up the Pi, the relays and the power… and there are scripts out there for the lights, but has anybody synced the relays to Christmas lights and music using a script? I’m looking at doing maybe 2-4 songs is all.

Input?????

[Tony (admin)]

Oh fun! I’ll answer tomorrow. Im just off to bed. I have a Pi and they are very fun.

[Tony (admin)]

Check out this amazing Christmas lights video:

And here is a link to some good resources: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/christmas-lights/

I’ve got one Pi (hope to get more for christmas) and one Odroid-XU4.  I’ve been using the Pi as a home NAS (network attached storage) device. It’s great. I set up an SMB server with it and it basically shows up like an external hard drive for anyone in the house to backup files to.  The Odroid is going to be a media server so all my pictures, movies, music will be on it and accessible from all devices, even the TV. One or both I may add personal cloud capabilities to so I can access them from anywhere.

Upcoming Pi projects for me aren’t christmas lights, but will be a way to open/close/monitor whether my garage door is open from my smartphone or any browser (like at work), and some outdoor security cameras.

[Puget Ute]

I have a Raspberry Pi with a screen functioning as the navigation computer on my boat.  It is a surprisingly powerful, stable, and flexible little computer, and the software available for it is top notch (and again, highly flexible).

I only need to convert a data stream (NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000 serial packets through an RS232 converter) into usable input, and program the output on the screen (wind direction/speed/True/Apparent, knotmeter/Speed Over Ground from internal GPS, water depth/temp, engine data, etc), and output back to the network the route data for the autopilot.  It integrates all of this seamlessly, and the programming is enjoyable. I had a bit of Unix/Linux and C+ programming experience in various classes for my engineering degree, and it is a lot of fun to use these skills again.  And the Pi setup saved me thousands of dollars over an equivalent chartplotter/nav computer. 

My experience isn’t really useful to your question, but I know you will have an enjoyable experience when you get your project working.  Good luck!

[UTE98]

Okay so after about an hour and half of watching videos, I’m thinking going with the pixels instead of LED lights. The hardest part for me is going to be the scripts and computer aspect. I’m a bit intimidated by the magnitude of a project, so might start working on it piecemeal, one or two features next year, then going going big in year two. Maybe next year just outline the house, and a couple arches. Then after that add in some snowflakes, rails, etc.

After next Christmas $$$$ will be a bit less tight so I can go big.

Probably boring to most of you, but I found this video very informative.