I’ve always been into Christmas light displays. Various basic light strings here and there, nothing too special. But the last few years I have been very slack.
In early December 2021, my right-hand neighbour put up a nice display, nothing too out there – a few Big W strings on the house, and around his fence. It was also at that same time which I was putting up the Christmas Tree, and getting all the decorations out.
So, I thought, why not put up some of the lights I had squirreled away. Motivation was also driven by the fact that in January 2021, I welcomed my first child into the world, and it would be nice to make something special.
However, I had no such luck, the old lights were all filament strings, and most weren’t working properly. So off to Bunnings, and I picked up 4 strings of lights, three for outside, one for the tree inside.
These came out pretty nice, for the first go – the neighbour on the left-hand side has two kids, 5 and 3, off memory, and they were amazed by the lights, despite how simple it could be.
So – what could I do to make it better? I’ve always been interested in computer driven lights, however where to start? Did I need to write software on an Arduino; build a lighting controller, and do it like that?
This is when I stumbled upon the Australian Christmas Lights forum (ACL). They have a fantastic guide (the ACL101) – which details all the bits you need to do, and consider, for a fantastic display. I was absolutely blown away by the software and hardware already out there to make this happen.
From there, the bug had bitten. I was hooked. The research started.