January 1st, 2006  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!  It's over for another year, and all in all, it was very successful.  We had a lot of fun and we made a lot of people smile.  Thanks to you, we raised $1,723.67 for Camp Goodtimes.  On behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society, thank you very much.  

Thanks also to The Surrey/North Delta Leader (Paula Carlson), and CTV News (Shannon Paterson & David Kincaid) for all their coverage.  Without them, I'm sure we'd have only had half the visitors we had.  We estimate this year about 25,000 people stopped by.  

See you all back next year, and thanks again.  Dan, Cindy, & Kyle.

December 15, 2005  Tonight was our busiest night so far.  It is unbelievable the amount of traffic outside.  I hope the neighbors don't get too upset...oh well, it's for a good cause.  Right now we're getting up to 7 tour busses a night, and 20 - 30 people watching the show at any given time is the norm.

December 11, 2005  We've had a tremendous turnout so far.  All the media coverage has obviously helped that.  We figure we've had more people this week than we had all last year. 

The Variety Club came out tonight with 4 buses of kids.  Coast mountain bus supplied the buses, the drivers donated their time, and the good folks at Variety Club did the rest.  Thanks to Eric Phillips from Variety, and Doug Woods from Coast Mountain for all their hard work in organizing that event.  I know there were many others involved, but I don't know who you are.  Thanks.

December 3, 2005  Today the lights went on!!!  We had a turnout of about 250 people, and we collected $150 for Camp Goodtimes.  Not a bad start.  We wouldn't have made it on time if it wasn't for Ross, both Kyle's, Glenn, Nicole, etc, etc.  There were too many small jobs left.   Thanks guys, we appreciate it.  We had everything done with about 2 hours to spare.

CTV was here today filming for tonight's news.  

November 29, 2005  We got a dump of snow last night.  It was just enough to bury all the hard work.  By the time we got home from work, one of the arches was practically laying down.  :-(   After an hour or so of shaking wet snow off and retying guy lines, it looks just like it was.  It turns out, when I did the initial setup, I forgot to tie that one arch to the lines.

We're down to less than 4 days, and we're realizing just how much we don't have done.  Unfortunately, I'll be up pretty late the rest of the week.  Right now I'm at 'concern'.  The next stage is 'panic'.

 <  New post buttons                                                  Wires fanning out to yard  >

November 24, 2005  We are nearing the completion stage.  So far, the setup has taken 107 hours, we're at 38,000 lights drawing 130 peak amps.  We have about a dozen or so little jobs which I figure will be done by the middle of next week.  So far, we have still only taken 1 day off since the first of the month.

Of the 7 interactive buttons, 2 have been broken already.  They were obviously not strong enough to have kids walking down the sidewalk smacking them.  I have replaced them all with heavy duty, but not indestructible, ones.  Hopefully they will fair better than the last.

As I said earlier on this page, because we've kept the electronics in the house as opposed to in the yard, we do have this burden of 'Lots of Wire'... 

9 days to go...

Below:  New buttons being wired up, "The Mess", Buddy all tuckered out from decorating, and the display nearly complete

November 14, 2005  We've only taken 1 day off so far since November 1st.  We're about 2/3 done now so I'm pretty confident it'll all get completed on time.

So far we have the big tree, fence, arches, and chimney all up, and I just got the interactive buttons wired and working last night.  All we have left is the bushes, build 8 more small trees and a few oddball things, and put together a bunch of power cords.

18 days and counting...

  < Steph pulling in about half of the wires                           Mr. Safety over here  >  

November 09, 2005  We've been going for a few weeks now, and I am feeling that we should be WAY further ahead.  Last week I got the fence up (took a LOT longer because of the posts that we had to cut in to incorporate the interactive circuits - below left).

Yesterday Cindy's dad popped by so I had to put him to work.  We got the mast up, and I got 8 of the circuits on the tree today.

24 days and counting...Good thing I'm not due back at work for a while... ;-)

October 18, 2005  It has begun.  The lights started going up today.  The rain is coming, so the rush is on...

October 5, 2005  Not too much to say, except that after just under 12 months of work, my panel is now complete.  I figure from design to final testing, it took well into the hundreds of hours, and enough money that I'm afraid to add it up.  That's all.

September 30, 2005  Coming right along now.  We completed the interactive posts, hooked up the amp, and got the third song half sequenced.  The break in between the songs is now complete too.  The LOR software is misbehaving, so that's going to need some attention.  

I had to rewire the last LOR channel (Interactive buttons) as the SSR leaks enough voltage to allow the buttons to operate during the shows.  I wired a mechanical relay off the SSR, and that seems to have done the trick.  I'm finding there are quite a few of these little problems that creep up.  Next year, I'm buying pre built boards from LOR.

September 16, 2005  It's alive!!!  Dean came over last Sunday...one IRQ setting later, and the panel works.  THANK YOU DEAN!!!  There's a few little bugs to work out, but it's working great.   This week Dad & I made the fence posts, I got the chimney made, and all the control leads rewired.  Czar came over today, and we build a few more trees and finished the second light bar.  76 days and counting...

August 26, 2005  It's been a while since the last entry.  I've finished all the interactive wiring on the panel, and the entire panel is pretty much done, except I still can't get the computer talking to the lights.  We can turn the lights on and off with the mouse, but that won't quite cut it.  I've put that on hold until I can get Dean out again to have a looksie.  Worst case scenario is I have to replace the DIO card with a different make.  Ouch...$$$

In the meantime, I've just finished the walkway to encase the wires.  There's lots of these little projects on the go.  In the next few weeks, I'm hoping to complete the frame for the chimney, the rest of the power cords, the fence posts and wiring, and hopefully start the small tree addition.

I've come to the realization that I won't have time to do the trial run in the backyard like I had wanted.  

June 3rd, 2005  Well, I've almost got the rewire thing beat.  I've just got to add the interactive relays and outlets (the empty box on the top right and the space below it) and finish testing from the PC.  Only 1 unresolved trouble so far...I know it looks pretty messy, but it will clean up quite a bit.

I had to split 3 of the relay banks into 2 separate power feeds.  Seems I erred a bit when I allocated channels to some of them.  I would have had over 17 amps each on those 3.  I could have changed the channel designations in LOR to correct this, but the rewire would be WAY less work.  I'm up to about 30 hours in sequencing time, so I didn't want to have to go back and change all that.

I got the software I need to interface between the DIO card, and the lighting software, but am having a heck of a time getting it to work.  I think I'm going to have to call in some help on this one.  I have a buddy in Delta that has already built his own display.  Hopefully the prospect of beer and pizza will get him out.  

I've spent quite a bit of time modifying power cords this past month.  With the type of setup I am going with, all my power feeds come from inside the house, which means one thing...LOTS OF WIRE.  I can cut what I need to buy and use in half by using the ground as a hot ...well, you can read about it here if you like.

Here are some other panel pics with some more detail:

February 17, 2005  We now have a final design.  As you can see, I've pulled down most of the old panel.  We are going to go with a 96 channel DIO card running LOR software.  I won't change my mind again.  I promise.  It's time to start putting pictures up of something other than the panel.  I should be able to get the wiring finished in the next month or two.  There's over 1,700 electrical connections to be made.

I've got one song (Jingle Bells) fully sequenced now.  It took between 15 and 20 hours.  I could care less if I ever hear it again.  Unfortunately, I've got about 5 songs to go.  

We'll be building the large tree in the back yard again this spring/summer to see how it works with the animation.  I'm thinking of also adding 5 feet to it.

January 6, 2005  OK, I've changed my mind again.  We are not going to go parallel after all, so everything from the relays down in the picture to the right is coming out.  That's about 20 hours or so down the tube.  The final decision (I think) will be serial with 48 channels running Dasher or Light-O-Rama software.

December 21, 2004  As you can see, I've changed the layout of the panel.  No longer am I planning on a sub panel, and only 16 animated circuits.  I've decided to run 12 dedicated 15 amp circuits (3 more than 2004) right off the main panel, and each one will be switched here and then through the GFCI.  This will make testing and resetting much easier.  Every Christmas light control will be located in one place.  You can see the 12 new relays for the interactive circuits have been mounted, giving me a total of 36.  I've got quite a bit of wiring ahead of me.

October 29, 2004  The relays finally cleared customs, and are now mounted.  I've just begun wiring them, and should be done that in a week or so.  I'm just a box and a breaker panel from being done with the hardware.

October 19, 2004  Here we go already planning for a display that's over 1 year away.  

The 2005 display will be totally computerized...I hope.  The hardware will be in place, it's just a matter of getting the software to work.  There will be 24 circuits in all.  The first 8 (15 amps each) will be for the static lights, and the following 16 (60 amps total) will be for the motion.   The computer is only a P2 300Mhz, but that's all that is required.

I've got the new panel half wired and the computer mostly built (I just need a couple more circuit boards).  I'm waiting for the relays (coming up from Idaho), but unfortunately they are going to be held up at customs for up to a month.  Other than that, I just have to wire in the new breaker panel, pick up a relay box, and buy the software to run it all.