Christmas Eve 2007

Merry Christmas...Eve! The night is warm and calm, a great evening to watch a holiday light show. I have seen up to ten cars at one time parked in front of the house. With such a pleasant evening some people are getting out of their cars and watching from the sidewalk. I put a radio outside so they could hear the music.

I am glad so many people are enjoying the show. That's one of the things that makes all the hard work worth while.

Happy Holidays!

Music Sounds Great

Well, I solved the distortion problem. I wasn't able to make any adjustments on the MP3 controller or the FM transmitter; however, I fixed the problem by remixing the music with lower gain. The show is awesome now!

Music Synchronized Show Is On Display

The new show is working now! Music is playing and lights are dancing. The problem was the sync cable. I searched a forum on Animated Lighting's website and found a thread that mentioned which pins the two wires should connect to on the Monster Brain. Sure enough, Animated Lighting configured the wire incorrectly so that when plugged in one wire was on the wrong pin. I reconfigured the wires and now everything works. I'm so glad the information was in the forum because it wasn't anywhere in Animated Lighting's documentation.

One problem left: The music is distorted especially on louder parts of the songs. I guess this is the next challenge to figure out.

Sync Complete, But Won't Play

The synchronization is complete except for Carol of the Bells. I connected the MP3 controller, downloaded the show, but only the first song plays and the lights do not turn on. I hope the MP3 controller isn't bad. I've tried various things, but no luck. I suspect a problem with the sync cable between the Monster Brain and the MP3 controller. It's the only thing that I'm not sure is connected correctly. It has two wires, but three pins to connect to. I can't work on this any more tonight so I'll continue tomorrow. I have to figure this out to meet the contest deadline. I'm also having coworkers stop by Friday to see the show.

Music Sync Continues

Well, it's Sunday night. I mixed the music, but still have some synchronization to do. This sure takes quite a while to do! It will be worth it when it is finished. I want to finish as soon as possible because some radio stations are having a contest for the best Christmas light display. I want to enter before it is too late.