Having been disappointed by the generic offering of Christmas lights with small customization options, he decided to make fully customizable light decoration.
Small PIC12F609 MCUs along with RGB LEDs are placed on a board and daisy chained over a 3 wire cable. A master MCU is placed on one end of the cable and controls the color of the lights individually by sending addressed data over the wires.
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Good job, and really nicely documented. I sure this device is significantly cheaper than this mod http://www.deepdarc.com/2010/11/27/hacking-christmas-lights/
I’m sure it is not cheaper. There is no way you can going to compete on price against Christmas lights based on custom pixel driver chips like the WS2801 especially when you buy them from the DIY Christmas light crew or from a department store after Christmas in the sales.
If you were going to use a PIC why not use a 12F1822 that has more grunt and has a hardware support for serial protocols. You can then use some standard like DMX or LOR and interface to the many controllers currently available that in turn interface to the rather powerful software apps like freestyler, vixen etc.
Actually, even the store bought lights can interface to the DIY controllers via pixel net etc.
I don’t mean to poo-poo this effort. It is interesting and does have unique possibilities. It is just for price and common standards the DIY Christmas crew are still way ahead.
1$ mcu, .50$ resistors and .85$ RGB led.. Mastercard.. Building it yourself… PRICELESS!..
/me thinks the 12F1822 is better suited :D
Hello,
To be precise it was (in november 2010) less than $ 2 each LED+MCU+reg+resistors.
The WS2801 is more expensive and more difficult to find in my country.
I have to admit that the goal was to have fun and make everything from scratch. :-)
:) those figures weren’t checked
I like the way you solved the communication between the pics.
Well don’t think I am knocking your efforts. If you can easily get the PIC that does the job and at a price that is OK and were happy to do it this way then that is all great stuff. My comment was to refute the idea that it was the cheapest way to do it and in most cases I believe that to be true.
I was going to do the same thing as you did but with the 12F1822 until I did the math and worked out that other methods provided more for less cost and still allowed it to be done in a DIY fashion.
PRICELESSLESS PRICE!…There is no big deal. There is certainly others easier and cheaper solutions.
A few months later, I probably would have chosen a different technical solution.