Raspberry Pi - Ollies Loop Lights Project

You Control The Music

Control the show, once it has started, by selecting a song of your choice...go to:

https://ollieslooplights.remotefalcon.com

View the 2024 light show on YouTube

Click on this link to view the playlist of songs for the Christmas show:

www.youtube.com/@mayhemcreations2745

When It All Started (some boring history read)

To give everyone a little background in my interest in this hobby. It started almost 15 years ago, when I discovered YouTube video of people that had put up Christmas lights, and had them blinking in sequence to music. It really struck out how the lights interacted with the music, and it intrigued me to figure out how it was done, as I was hoping to replicate it for my house. After researching, I learned that they were using control systems by a company called Light-o-Rama (LoR for short). The controllers were 16 channels each, but the cost of each controller was in the hundreds of dollars. Add on the cost of the lights used with those controllers, and one quickly would find out that this wasn't a project for individuals on a budget. As I researched further, I also discovered that the light shows were usually setup to the timing of the music through LoR's proprietary software. Each I/O had to be set to the milli-second of music, and depending on how many lights you wanted to control, and how you would like the show to be displayed to your audience, you have that much IO to setup. More lights strings or individual lights, the greater effect you could do, but a big drawback, especially sequencing on your own, one song, would add countless hours to setup just right (funny how things circle around, LOL). Sure, you could find individuals who had done sequences and put them on the internet to download, but you would still have to spend time to set it up to your display (as everyone's display is different/unique), or you could purchase music/sequence combos, but again, more money being spent, and you would still have to spend countless hours tweaking it to your setup. So I shelved the idea at the time...

Then along came Christmas, 2013, prior to moving to Nova Scotia. During that Christmas season, some friends told us of a house not to far away from us that had their lights synced to music (using one of the Light-o-Rama controllers, I pretty sure of it). My family took a drive by and we were all impressed. It's one thing to see YouTube video clips, but a whole other level when witnessing one of these systems live. Actually, the owner has put up a YouTube video that can be still viewed below:

That just re-ignited the quest again. Though I knew using the LoR controllers were out of the question, I had to figure out a more economical solution. Since I had a Raspberry Pi kicking around, I started to wonder if anyone had thought about controlling lights via music using the Pi's GPIO. Low and behold, an individual who went by the blog name Chivalry Timbers (unfortunately his blog is no longer active) used a RPi to control lights with midi music. As cool as this project was, midi music is primarily used for controlling things, as it is very boring and lifeless to listen to. I wanted to use more lively audio recordings using mp3, flac or some other accurate compression algorithm. That's when I happened on the project called LightshowPi. Like the Chivalry Timbers project, LightshowPi works by sampling the music frequency and turning on/off IO according to the FFT math calculations. It does this in Real Time. The project proved to be less time consuming than setting up projects like LoR, and less expensive, and bypass proprietary systems, since being done on the Raspberry Pi platform. On the downside there are drawbacks in this system; A user is constrained on the amount of customisation of sequences of the lights to music bound to frequency points. The lights would light on the frequencies dedicated to them, but if you know music, you don't just get the primary frequency bar, but you get secondary harmonics...which would light additional lights. You combine it all, and it looks fine if you can hear the music with the lights. But in cases you can't...it just looks like a blitz of scattered blinking lights.

Regardless, I ran the Lightshow Pi show to the delight of the Hackett's Cove community every Christmas from 2017 to 2023. I had a dedicated Christmas playlist for a main show that ran for 2 hours, with smaller playlists throughout the remainder of the evening. The show would run throughout the month of December and into January. After Christmas, I would change the playlist to one of party, dance and rock songs...basically anything that would blink the lights nicely.

As the 2023 show was going on, I decided that I wanted to expand the system, after running the same show for the past 7 years. I first thought of sticking with Lightshow Pi, and expanding on the GPIO using the PI's I2C communication. I also thought about expanding Lightshow Pi by including the neighbors and using a Master/Slave setup, but that would require updated hardware (not to mention getting a neighbor or two on board). I then started to think about looking more at the alternative....having the lights flash in the timing of the music, basically how the pros are doing it (and here is the full circle). This decision became more solidified when my wife mentioned that she likes viewing the singing trees, which can be achievable going with the latter *nudge, nudge, wink, wink*.

See, in the years of using LightshowPI, another community of DIY'ers were working on a Pi OS called Falcon Pi Player, or FPP for short. They developed it for the purpose of a DIY platform replacing the professional LoR setups. FPP has the capabilities to send control out to various types of controllers to make up some pretty elaborate setups. Even the open source software used for creating sequences has developed substantially...with the two prominent community driven ones being Vixen, and xLights. The latter being the more defacto choice now.

So now that I've laid out the history, time to explain what this show actually does. If you choose to view the pre-2024 show using the old system, please go here.

So below is my continued journey of this fun DIY project/hobby.

Note: I'm going to also start a FAQ page as I get questions from the community...I suppose there will be some, and figure it will be a good way to answer them in one location. The FAQ is listed below, but right now, it will be kinda empty.

FAQ Page

Ollies Loop Lights FAQ page.

Hardware:

Ollies Loop Lights - 2024 and beyond...

The general wire diagram of the new system is show below, with a breakdown discription of the parts used in the build further down. NOTE: that the diagram does not show the additional power supply/DMX controller/4x hi-powered spots.

Raspberry Pi 2B

I've been using various 2nd Gen Raspberry Pi's in my music distribution system, so I figured I'd try out FPP on one of them. FPP's minimum Pi requirement is a Gen 2 board or better. For the current show I'm designing, the 2B should work just fine, but as the show evolves in the future, it will warrant a more powerful Pi controller. So I'll most likely end up looking into replacing it with a 4th Gen Pi as they are becoming more readily available, and getting off-loaded as the 5th Gen Pi is getting more into production.

The Pi is the central controller for the Ollies Loop Lights, as I will be utilizing 26 of the 28 available GPIO on the 40-pin header. The last two are going to be spared up in the event I have some issue and need to patch one of them in.

The Pi running FPP also acts as the music player (like Lightshow Pi), as well it is responsible as the schedular for the show times.

4x SainSmart 8 channel SSR Board

So in order to turn the lights on/off, you have to connect the Pi I/O to some sort of relay system (or some other external controller). You could just use discrete relays, but I chose to use a SainSmart 8 channel SSR relay board. This board has 8 drive circuits that run off 5V, and 8 Omron G3MB-202P Solid State Relays. These boards by SainSmart were designed for use in small Arduino and Pi projects. They are relatively inexpensive, and easy to hook up. The SSR type boards are 2A capable, which is just fine for strings of LED lights. If you figure your load will draw greater than 2A, then SainSmart does sell a version that uses mechanical relays that can handle 10A current loads.

The previous LightShow Pi system used 2 of these boards...the second only partially loaded.

The new system based on FPP will be using 4 boards. I also have one board spared on hand with 7 good channels. I had a catastrophic short occur which drew more than 2A that the onboard relay couldn't handle, and as a consequence, I blew the channel. So I'm looking into replacing the SSR and have a full board available to swap should I have to.

CZH-05B FM Transmitter

What's a Christmas light show if the public can't hear the music? I could broadcast the music through my home audio system, though this would most likely upset the neighbors, and when it's cold out, why would anyone want to be outside of their warm vehicles? So I ended up picking up a CZH-05B for the cheap. There wasn't too much public opinion on the unit other than a short YouTube video, and somebody wrote up a blog review, but they both had nice things to say about it. The price was also right, though this unit in particular didn't include a power source, something I learned the hard way. The unit itself is pretty powerful, as I had it in the basement of my home, and I was still picking up a signal a good block away.

So, as mentioned the unit didn't include a power source, but I figured it didn't matter, since I had on hand a 12VDC wallwart. I figured that wrong. The 60Hz hum was so bad, that you couldn't even hear the actual audio signal. Luckily I had on hand a Symbol 12V 9A switch power supply from an eBay purchase a while back, and it was just sitting collecting dust...well, not anymore.

Various Power Units

3x 12VDC 9A Symbol power supply

I originally bought this sort of supply to power a car audio amp in a portable PA system. For that project I had only ordered two but the ebay seller included a third for some reason. I ended up leaving this in a box and it collected dust for many years. It was brought out of storage because it was required to power the FM broadcast system, since it is a nice clean power source. The supply itself is capable of outputting 9A, and soon became the perfect power unit to power the entire LightshowPi system (control side). So this supply powers not only the FM transmitter, it sources the DC to DC converter shown below for 5 volts to bias the SainSmart relay boards.

For the new show, I will be using two more of these supplies to drive the hacked RGB floods (mentioned below), and high powered LED spotlights via a DMX Led Controller.

During testing with the RGB flood lights, I measured the load on the supply, and the DMX controller in standby draws 25mA. Measuring the draw of one flood connected, all LED's on, the current draw was only 750mA. So no issue driving 4 RGB floods off one supply. Likewise the manufacturing specs on the high powered spots is 18W per light. This means just over an amp at 12 volts. The Symbol supply should be enough to drive 4 lights.

5VDC 10A power supply

After performing some testing, I came to realize that the DC to DC converter unfortunately does not put out enough current to properly drive the Gen2 Pi. I have had this 5V supply kicking about for years, so I'm going to put it in the system and see how it drives the Pi. It shouldn't be an issue as it puts out up to 10A current at 5V.

12VDC to 5VDC 4xUSB port converter

This unit is a nice clean DC to DC converter, and basically takes the 12VDC from the Symbol supply and converts it to 5V via 4 USB ports, or two screw down terminals. This was a great ebay purchase, as it is used to bias the input circuitry of the relay boards.

DSD Tech USB/DMX Interface

Another advantage of using FPP is the ability to intermix other controllers and protocols into the system. This was a short-coming with LSPi. With the previous show, I was able to control the floods by turning on/off the red/green/blue channels to achive those three colours, some basic blends when turning on two of the colours together, or creating a white effect when all three were turned on. But there was no additional affects, color blends, or fades capable, and I used 3 GPIO ports on the Pi to do it.

I decided to add DMX control into this system to take advantage of the extra abilities and effects and not tie up any additional GPIO on the Pi itself to do it.

This was a pretty inexpensive purchase on Amazon at only $25.

2x 12 Channel DMX LED Controller

As mentioned above, I found out a way to get the most from the hacked RGB floods by diving into the world of DMX control. This piece is integral in controlling the different channels of the flood lights. It allows for up to 4 RGB floods to be connected (or 12 individual LED lights).

It to, was a pretty cheap buy on Amazon at only $50.

It draws under 30mA at 12V in standby, and upon testing it under load with the 10W floods I indicate below, it only draws about 750mA per channel with all three colours on. So the above 12V Symbol supply should be more than ideal to control the RGB floods.

I've purchased a second one of these that I can daisy chain using CAT5e cable and setup a second group of hi-powered white LED floods for strobe/flash effects.

Specialty Lights:

4x Hacked 10w RGB Flood lights

I ended up getting a couple of these off ebay for pretty cheap. I researched on how to hack these lamps to control them using the RaspPi. These make a nice addition and brings a certain amount of ambience and mood to the display. For the original LSPi show I used two of these controlled by 3 GPIO ports on the Raspberry Pi. Now that I'm going to use DMX to control them, I'm in the process of purchasing an additional 2 units to expand the display to 4 floods.

4x High Powered LED Spot Lights

I decided to expand the DMX system and include an additional set of high powered LED spot lights to create flash/strobe effects. The LED lights output 1800lm at about 18W of power on 12VDC. These spots are controlled via a second DMX control box listed above.

They were purchased off Amazon as a pack of 8 lights. In the current setup this allows for 4 spares. Or I could use 6 of these lights with the current 12VDC 9A supply if required. Basically, I have options.

Sofware:

The system comprises of open source software that can be downloaded from the internet. The two main pieces of software is the Raspberry Pi Operating system, and the program used to create the light sequences.

Falcon Pi Player

Falcon Pi Player is a Linux based OS used on the Raspberry Pi. It is open source and can be downloaded here. There is a massive community behind this project, and lots of turtorials on how to set it up. FPP is the main system in the setup, and is more than just an OS. It is the system that stores all the show information, songs/media, and scheduling/playlist creating. It is the main hub or master when connecting multiple controllers to do what ever functions you want to do in a show.

It also has a generous plugin section which allows the community to create things for specific uses. Ollies Loop Lights utilizes a few of these plugins, such as the After Hours Streaming Music plugin, Falcon Hardware System Monitor, Remote System Control, and Remote Falcon.

It has an easily navigatable web server, so you don't have to connect a monitor directly to the Pi in order to service it.

The After Hours Streaming Music plugin - is setup to play music in the off hours of the show (before and after), until the show starts, or the system shuts down.

Falcon Hardware Monitor - allows for monitoring the system settings, temperatures and voltages.

Remote System Control - allows me to log into the system and bring up the web server anywhere I may be located in the world as if I'm accessing the system right at home within my own network.

Remote Falcon - this is the plugin that allows listeners to select the music they would like to experience. Control the show by going here

xLights

xLights is the other main piece of software to use to create the show. It can be used across multiple types of OS, including Windows, Linux and MacOS. I touched on it above, but basically it behaves as any other audio/video NLE program. It can be downloaded here. It too has an aboslutely massive community following and again there are so many tutorials on setting it up and exploring its functionality.

This is where you define the controllers being used. You then setup an image backdrop of the show (picture of house or yard). You create the models and props that you want to use and place them in the image. From there, you load up the media you want to sequence and go through telling the system what to do with the props at any given time.

You can even simulate the sequence prior to loading it over to the Pi. Below is a typical xLights workspace.

All sequences for the Ollies Loop Lights show were personally designed and developed. Sequences would range in completion times depending on how difficult and invested I would get into the sequence, but on average, it would take anywhere from 10 to 30 hrs per song.

Realize, that is my sequences, which are rather simple because of the type of lights I chose to use. Someone with a much more massive system of 30,000 pixels, which are each individually controlled, the time could increase two-fold.

And here are some of the songs in simulation:

The Props:

Here I will list the props in the show. Some of them are carried over from the previous show. There are close to 3500 LED bulbs used, 4 DMX RGB 10W floods and 4 DMX Spot lights. The total power consumption is around 700W (adding in all the electronics as well) and draws around 6A to power. To put this in perspective...a typical hair dryer draws upwards of 1900W. So even when the system does consume the full 700W (that is all lights on, which only breifly happens), it still consumes less energy than 10 minutes a day of drying hair.

So in addition to the above mentioned RGB Floods, and Spotlights, below is the list of props used in the show.

The House

One thing I've learned now, which I didn't do in the previous show years...to utilize the one big prop in front of you...your house. In previous years, I just scattered lights around the yard...maybe showcasing the snowman props. But looking at YouTube videos of others with successful light shows, its the house that people zero in on. Showcase this and use it as your center piece, it should be the main attraction of the show. Below is the layout of my house, and all props surrounding it.

Candy Canes

These are a staple from previous shows that used to be mounted on the balconies...now they are at the forefront of the show. They are store bought and come in packs of 3, that are all wired together, and are rather inexpensive. The lights used in these are mini incadecent bulbs totalling about 60 bulbs in each set, or around 20.5W.

I utilize 5 groups, each group independently controled.

Trees

These are new this year and are DIY builds. There are two trees in the show. Each one has about 500 mini LED bulbs and consumes around 48W. Each tree is independently controlled by FPP.

These trees were personally built and are based on the builds by Isaac Alexander in his YouTube video:

Snowmen and Presents

These are staples from previous years. The large snowman was replaced for this year's show, as the previous one took quite a bit of a beating over the last several years.

The small round snowman had the lower half of lights faulted, and it was restrung with a spare set of C6 bulbs.

The small square snowman was an old prop I had on the shelf from years past shows. I ended up bringing it back out as the normal prop, a green present, had lost half its string of lights, and I didn't get a chance to restring it, so it was a late addition back in.

The red present is a prop that I have used in past shows, and is quite a nice accent.

The light/energy consumption breakdown:

Large Snowman: 200 mini LED consuming about 19.2W

Small Snowman: 100 LED bulbs consuming 9.6W

Small Square Snowman: 50 LED bulbs consuming around 4.8W

Red Present: 50 mini LED bulbs consuming 4.8W

Window Coverings

The window coverings are DIY constructed frames with 1/2" PVC conduit, and lights tie-wrapped around the frames. The bulb count is listed:

Small window frames: 50 x C6 LED bulbs consuming 4.8W each

Mid window frames: 70 x C6 LED bulbs consuming 6.72 W each

Large window frame: 2x 70 C6 LED bulbs (140 LED lights) consuming about 14.4W

House Outline/Balconies/Gutter

The house outlines are somewhat a new direction this year, especially the upper rooflines. They are multicolored LED strings in the following counts:

Rooflines: 100 x C6 LED bulbs consuming around 9.6W each

Main Balcony: 170 x C6 LED bulbs totalling around 16.32W

Bedroom Balcony: 140 x C6 LED bulbs consuming about 13.44W

Gutter: 210 x C6 LED bulbs consuming around 20.16W

Stars

The stars are a new addition that were DIY constructed using 1/2" PVC conduit cut at 3' length, and wrapped with 12' rope lighting. They create a real nice affect, and I'm quite pleased with them.

Researching the rope lighting, there are about 144 LED bulbs in each rope. The total consumption is about 12W for each rope run. The star idea came from the YouTube video below, but I rescaled it to accept a shorter run of rope light, and based on the basic size I created in my xLights model. It just so happen to work out that the PVC lengths were to be 3'. I also instead of using the hardware he used to bolt the conduit crossover points together (adding weight), I used zip-ties.

Tune-To Sign

The sign is new this year and manufactured by a local company called Allen Prints. They have done some work for me in the past, and are very pleasent to work with, and they do some exceptional, professional work.

The Tune-To Sign isn't directly lit, but will be wrapped with a string of LED bulbs around it to enchance the sign at night. The string contains about 100 bulbs that consume 9.6W.

The RGB HACK:

As for the hack of the RGB Floods. The hack for hard wire control is well known for these floods and explained pretty good here (all but his hookup of the green and blue lines with current limit resistors...see futher below):

The original RGB floods modified for Ollies Loop Lights were a little different from what the video displayed above.

This was the unit when it first arrived. The black cord was an open ended 3 conductor cable for 120V termination.

This is what the inside looked once the face glass was removed.

And when the reflector was removed, it exposed the circuit board seen to the left. I would disconnect the IR circuit as it wouldn't be required. Measuring the LED, it was getting a common high side, meaning the LED banks were driven direct by power, and switching occured on the low side. This is pretty common, and the parts required for low side switching is minimal. The red, green, blue wires coming off the LED and terminating at the large wattage resistors would be kept. Below is a closer view of the circuit board.

The image above show the original power, ground and I/R cables detached from the circuit board.

I snipped out the red and black wires from the circuit board. These two wires went though holes on either side of the LED die. I also snipped the resistors leads on the left side of the above image from the circuit board and attached my control leads to them. The wiring used was CAT5 cable. Though the wire AWG was small at about 28 AWG, it just met the minimum requirements for the amount of current draw. I used the following schema for attaching the CAT5 cable:

CAT5 RGB

Orange Red

Green Green

Blue Blue

Brown +12V

The compartment on the backside of the RGB flood housed the LED driver power supply, a small 120VAC to 12VDC converter box.

Here is the power supply removed from the flood. The nipple that the AC cable went through will be repurposed for the CAT5 cable to route through and be sealed off as the cable is about the same diameter.

These flood were definitely easier to work with as they had the resistors already on hand that I used to current limit the floods. Unfortuately I did't take any pictures of the finished product prior to sealing it back up and after years of use, I'm a little reluctant in opening them again as the screws are corroded.

To note, this hack was done back in 2014, and the floods have been used in the Ollies Loop Light show to this day. I'm hoping for just as much success when the next two come in.

*fast forward*

The next set of floods came in, and their design was a little different. They didn't have small circuit boards, as everything seemed to be encapsulated into the power puck in the rear of the unit. The picture below shows the front cover and reflector removed. Again 12V DC drives the RGB LED chip and the three colors are switched to ground. The RGB chip appears to be a 20-RGB, which could mean that it is really a 20W capable LED (still looking for the data sheets on it).

That backside indicates an operating voltage of 85V to 265V at 50 to 60Hz. It says it is 10W. It would indicate the white colour temperature if it was only a white LED. The rest of the labelling is pointless as it is all in Chinese. The cable ends aren't terminated so it would allow for the connection of all the different types of plugs. Removing the cover reveals some very interesting (albeit concerning) issues.

Pulling off the back cover reveals the LED driver model 9-12W (trying to find datasheets on it). Again the label is in Chinese.

And then you realize that the build quality of these products are sorely missing. The AC earth is not terminated. It has a ring lug crimped, but it isn't screwed down. Also on one of the floods, the wires were crimped so bad that the wire could have shorted against the metal shell.

prior to removing the unwanted hardware, I took some voltage measurements across the LED chip and found this:

Red: 6.22V, Green: 8.6V, Blue 8.7V

I added the resistor to the red line. I didn't have any 18R 2W on hand, but I did have 33R 2W and used that. I then took some current measurements and found the following:

Red (with the 33R resistor): 170mA current draw, Both Green and Blue (no resistor): over 1A current draw

So I must dispell what the gent in the video indicates that only the Red LED requires a resistor. All three colors require some sort of current limit resistor in place, or you will risk in a premature failure. I had some 13R 2W resistors on hand and installed them inline of the Green and Blue LEDs. That seemed to do the trick as I then measured the following:

Red (with 33R resistor): 170mA, Green and Blue (both have a 13R resistor): 210mA

Below are the the floods at various stages of the modification. The first flood modded, I replaced all the original wiring with CAT5e (24AWG single strand conductor). The second flood, I reused the original wire that was already soldered to the RGB chip.

First flood with all three lines with inline resistors soldered.

<== Second flood with original wiring to terminate to.

Resistors terminated and in line.==>

Protection:

As the title suggest, the two major issues in our area especially is water and wind. I will address each below.

Wind

In shows past, this was a major headache to wakeup in the morning and find the ground props, like the snowman knocked over. Even tent pegging, and using guy-wires, the problem still persisted. There were times when during the show, the props would fall over, and I just figured it wasn't worth the hassle to fix at the time, until the wind died down.

For the 2024 show, the props on the ground are all staked in with rebar, or galvanized rod, hammered into the ground about a foot down. In the case of the snowmen, and present, the rebar is on the inside of the prop, and the prop frame is zip-tied to it.

The trees are staked at each leg.

The props on the side of the house (stars and window frames) are held in place with vinyl siding hooks. They clip under the siding and can hold upto 15 pounds. I use 3 on each star and 3 to 4 on the window frames depending on the size of the frame. This is what the hooks look like.

Water

Water is the larger concern than wind, and I have lost a few props and blown GFCI over the years because of the ammount of rain we get. I've even just shut the show down some nights due to rain, and the issues it has caused.

In 2023 I ended up ending the show before New Years since I was having so many issues with the props shorting out due to the ammount of rain we were getting. I don't think it was so much the rain coming down, but more the amount of water that just collected on the ground and getting into the extension plug ends where the props connect.

So for this show, I took the PVC conduit scraps from the trees and stars, drilled holes on one end for zip ties, and hammered them into the ground so I can zip-tie the connection off the ground entirely.

Also open cables ends, espcially on the candy canes, are zip-tied up against the candy cane body to keep it from resting directly on the ground.

For connecting the DMX spot lights to their power cables from the dedicated controller, I used water-tight IP68 style hubs

Even the DMX coms cable that daisy chain the Flood light controller to the Spot light controller is within a RJ45 water-tight IP68 rated hub.

Connections between the 4 RGB Floods to their respected DMX controller are done via an RJ45 adapter, and enclosed in a water-tight housing.

I've used these housings for this purpose since I've used the floods in the show and haven't had any issues with water infiltration

The DMX controllers and associated power supplies are housed in plastic ammo cases that are water proof. All cable glands are water-tight to IP68 standards too.

High Powered LED Control box on the left

RGB LED Flood Control box on the right

Electrical Current Protection

As stated, due to the ammount of rain water in last years show, I had plenty of system failures. A couple of them were shorts which over powered the SSR's on the relay boards, but the shorts would remain below 15A so the GFCI would not trip. This caused either the boards fuse link to blow, or in a couple of instances, the entire SSR would blow.

Now in the updated system, every channel is protected with a 2A fast blow glass fuse in line. So if a light string goes out due to a blown fuse, I can easily identify it and swap it out, in the hopes that the relay boards remain undamaged. In the image below, you can view some of the inline fuses during the control box rebuild.

Additional Information, Learnings and Notes:

December 2023

I haven't really reported to much in the last few years on the lightshow. With 2020 being a down year due to Covid (I ran the show, but didn't really mention it too much). Following year in 2021 I didn't setup the show as I was travelling for work, but finally had the show back up in 2022. Now after this year (2023), I'm finally going to go with the expansion of the system with the MCP23017 board and extra relay boards. I also have some plans for DIY trees, stars and lights around the windows.

After this expansion and future 2024 show, I'm going to re-evaluate the system and might perform a major overhaul with new hardware (Pi from first gen to maybe a 3rd or 4th gen) and go with a FalconPiPlayer (FPP)/Xlights setup.

*UPDATE*

Upon experimenting with xLights and creating several sequences and testing them on a Pi 2B running FPP, I think I will be moving away from LSP for the 2024 show, so this current LSP will be retired after the 2023 season. It was a very enjoyable run, but better things await.

In fact, I have been able to setup and simulate sequences in xLights, which might be included in the 2024 show:

January 2024

Start of the new year, and already starting to prepare for the new show...countdown...11 months.

Been working on song sequences and currently working on the song 6.

On the hardware side, I have a serial to RS485 adapter and have successfully connected it to the Raspberry Pi. RS485 is the communication protocol used in DMX. So I have been thinking of moving my floods off of the Pi GPIO and onto a dedicated DMX controller. That will allow for further colour choices, hues, saturations and fades. This will also free up three additional GPIO for doing some other things.

Also on the hardware side, I have started to bench test the Pi connected to the existing relay boards and running sequences, and playlists. Link to a Youtube video below.

On the software side, I have been reviewing how to create playlist in FPP, and messing with BRP plugin to allow for the audience to select the the songs they would like to hear/watch.

And as always right now, continuing the learning curve of using xLights.

Decided to dive into the world of DMX controlling and figured it would be a good way of controlling the RGB floods. Seen several uses of a cheap DMX LED Controller for that purpose. I also figured I had an older Serial232 to RS485 adapter (DMX protocol uses RS485 communication), and an USB to RS232 converter cable, but after purchasing and trying the DMX LED Controller, it didn't work. Even though DMX used RS485 protocol as the commnication backbone, I figured the BAUD rate of the RS232 to 485 was too low. I decided to try a USB to DMX cable as it uses Open DMX and that is one of the settings in FPP. After everything came in and connected, I had control, but then after connecting an actual flood, another issue arose.

When playing a song, and the sequence turned on the RGB flood, you could here a high frequency whine injected in the audio. I tried all sorts of things to take the interference away, then looking at the instructions it shows additional grounds going to the two terminals on the RJ45 side of the LED Controller. In all the user video I watched, these two connections aren't even mentioned. Even though the terminals are tied internally to the power ground terminal on the other side of the controller, these two terminals need to be connected to ground as well. I take it that it helps ground out the input side of the board as maybe when not connecting, the input side biases high, and creates the high frequency audio distortion. After grounding all connections, the audio interference is now gone. Images below describe what I'm talking about.

So I'm also looking at a second LED Controller as they can be daisy chained together. The second controller will drive 4 hi-powered LED lights to create a strobe/flash affect with certain music. More details to follow.

On the sequencing side I currently have 10 songs and the intro completed. That's about 37 minutes of music so far. I might slack off on that front, and only do a song a week, as it is so time consuming.

February 2024

The beginning of February, and I'm piecing together the hardware enclosure. Did a test run and found out the DC to DC converter would not supply enough current to properly supply the Gen 2 Pi, so I'm going to try out a 5VDC 10A supply. I placed it in a general location to get an idea if it would work. Below are some pics of the new setup in progress.

Nearing mid-February the latest update is that I have pretty much completed the updates to the controller side of the Controller Box, and have a good portion of the AC side wired, just need to get a few more receptacles to complete that. But below is the latest test video where I'm testing the Pi, FM Transmitter, power supplies and control relay boards.

Currently on the sequencing front, I now have 12 songs (including intro) ready to go, which constitutes to about 40 minutes.

Mid February I have the box wired up, and have been performing some AC testing with lights plugged in. I was able to verify all mapping from the Pi GPIO through to the outlet. I haven't had a chance to video it yet, but here is a photo.

But I have run into some quirks, as listed below:

1) I've been testing the BRP plugin, which I think is a great idea for getting the audience involved and makes the show so interactive. This plugin allows for the audience to choose the next song to listen to. But I have found some cavets, which I'm hoping the plugin developer will look into.

2) FPP's web server crashed on me for no apparent reason. I started the system up and when I went to the browser, I kept on getting a 500 server error. Tried to investigate it, but ended up just re-imaging the SD card. I'm going to make sure I have a backup card ready for the actual show in the event I run into issues. Everything about the show still worked ie. scheduling, songs, sequences. I could SSH into the Pi, I just couldn't access it via web server.

The final thing I need to do to the controller enclosure is to seal the space between the two boxes, then I can basically set that away until closer to the show date.

Have almost 45 minutes worth of music sequenced (12 songs + intro) and continuing with more music, though at a slower pace. In the end, I'm hoping to have over an hours worth of music to randomly play throughout the showtimes.

March 2024

A quarter the way to the 2024 show. Things have gone into a bit of a lull right now. Haven't really worked on any of the music in the last while.

The 2 new floods came in and have been modified to work off the DMX controller. The modification is indicated above.

Only other thing done is the base of the trees have been completed.

April 2024

Added a countdown timer to the top of the page for the start of the 2024 Ollies Loop Lite Show on November 29th. This helps in the realism that the show is coming, and I need to be ready for it.

Added another song to the playlist, total songs 15. That gives a playing time of 51 minutes, 28 seconds. I'm nearing completion of another song, albeit only 1 minute 45 seconds long, but it is going to be a complete light show bonanzas. I might have to put a warning on it for anyone who might get triggered over flashing lights.

I have 3 more songs to sequence for the 2024 show, which should put the playlist over an hour long.

Also started to work on the external DMX enclosure, and tested 3 of the 4 DMX RGB floods.

2024 Playlists Finalized

I now have basically completed sequencing all the songs to make up the 2024 Christmas playlist. As it stands the playlist is just over an hour long, with 18 songs, 6 of them being well...not so Christmasy.

Gander here to view video of the 2024 Ollies Loop Light Show.

Christmas Playlist (text in red are Christmas songs):

Christmas Vacation Greatest Show Intro (only played once)

Trans Siberian Orchastra - A Mad Russian Christmas

Trans Siberian Orchastra - Christmas Eve Sarajevo

Florence & The Machine - Dog Days Are Over

Eric Weissberg - Duelling Banjos

Carly Rae Jepsen - It’s Not Christmas Till Somebody Cries

TobyMac (ft. Owl City) - Light Of Christmas

Trans Siberian Orchastra - Nutrocker

Trans Siberian Orchastra - Queen Of The Winter Night

Taylor Swift - Shake It Off

Trans Siberian Orchastra - Wish Liszt Toy Shop Madness

Trans Siberian Orchastra - Wizards Of Winter

Arron Gage - Deck the Halls (done in tune to Black Sabbath's War Pigs)

Robbie Williams - Rock DJ

Mavis Staples - Christmas Vacation

Foo Fighters - Times Like These

Holiday Express - Disco Santa Santa Clause (done in tune to Village People's YMCA, and Macho Man)

Our Last Night - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

Avicii - Levels

Post Christmas Rave Dance Party:

Florence & The Machine - Dog Days Are Over

Eric Weissberg - Duelling Banjos

Taylor Swift - Shake It Off

Robbie Williams - Rock DJ

Foo Fighters - Times Like These

Avicii - Levels

Tujamo - Techno Party

Wuki - Sunshine (My Girl)

Benny Benassi - Satisfaction

Nora Van Elken - Celebration

Alok (ft. Ella Eyre, Kenny Dope, Never Dull) - Deep Down

AC/DC - Thunderstruck

Living Colour - Cult Of Personality

Prince - Let's Go Crazy

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