How to animate your Christmas lights using an 8-channel controller

This tutorial will go step by step on how I made 2006's Christmas display.  2006's design used a simple 8-channel controller you can pick up online for about $40 bucks.

Here is a video to see the 8-channel controller in action:

2007's design uses an Olsen 595 controller and SSR's to animate the lights.  This design costs a considerable more than the 8-channel design, but with that added expense you get much more control over your display.  The 8-channel controller has 8 channels just as the name suggests, this means I can control 8 different "zones" of lights.  So if I want to animate the candy canes in my front yard, that is 1 zone.  If I want to animate the trunk of a tree, that is another zone.  The zones I animated are as follows:  zone 1 was the left tree's trunk, zone 2 was the right tree's trunk, zone 3 was the left tree's top leaves, zone 4 was the right tree's top leaves, zone 5 was the candy canes, zone 6 was the archway, zone 7 and 8 were designated for my 8-foot mega tree.

With 2 Olsen 595 controllers and 32 SSR's however, I have control over 128 different zones.  So for example, each strand of lights on the 8-foot mega tree can be a zone.  Each individual candy cane can be a zone and so on. 

If this is your first year, there is no better way to start in this hobby than by using the 8-channel controller.  It's cheap, easy to put everything together, and a great way to learn.  Let me describe how this all works together first, and then I'll go into how to build each individual component.

A standard printer cable connects from the back of your computer's printer port and plugs directly into the 8-channel controller's port.

A standard 12-volt DC power adapter plugs into the 8-channel controller to provide power.

8 power strips are laid out in the yard next to each of your zones.  The Christmas lights for each of your zones will plug directly into the power strips.  The 3-prong ends of the power strips are cut, and extension cords are added to the power strip's ends.

The power strip's 3-prong ends remain attached to the power strip, and another set of extension cords are plugged into the power strip's 3-prong end.  These extension cords are plugged into the electrical outlets of your house and are what supply the power to the actual Christmas lights.  The Christmas lights do not stay on with this direct power because we have inserted our modified extension cords that break the electrical connection.  When the relay inside the 8-channel controller closes, the electrical contact is made and the lights turn on.

The ends of the extension cords we added to the power strips are plugged into the extension cords that we will screw into the 8-channel controller.

That's all there is to it.  The Vixen animation software sends the signal through the parallel cable as to exactly which channel should turn on.  A little relay inside the individual channel closes and the electrical contact is made.  Now that the contact is made, the Christmas lights receive power and the lights turn on!

This is really easy, however, I have to put up a warning that if you do not feel comfortable around electricity, please do not attempt this project.  Power strips are modified and high voltage is run through the controller, so use extreme caution.  The bottom of the 8-channel controller has live electricity through it when everything is plugged into it.  DO NOT touch the controller with everything plugged into it and build a nice box to keep other people from touching it!

Okay, with all of that said, let's get building!

Here are the parts we need and the necessary tools (Besides the actual 8-channel controller, these links are not suggestions as to where to buy these products.  These links are used to just give you a visual aid as to what you're looking for when you're at your local hardware store):

1 8-channel controller - $39.95 (Parallel Port Relay Board part #CK1601A assembled).

8 power strips - I was able to pick these up at a local hardware store for around $3.50 each. 

Minimum of 16 20ft 2-prong extension cords - I was able to pick these up at Harbor Freight for around $2 bucks each (The exact number of 2-prong extension cords will depend on the distance from your zones and your computer). 

Minimum of 8 25ft 3-prong extension cords - $11.99 (The exact number of 3-prong extension cords will depend on the distance from your zones and your home's electrical outlets).

1 box of orange wire nuts - $5 bucks

1 roll of electrical tape - Can be found at any hardware store for less than a buck

Wire cutters

Wire strippers

Razor blade

Drill with ¼" bit

Plastic box to hold the controller - $10 bucks (I picked this up at Target)

We'll build the modified power strips first.  Take the power strip and cut the electrical cord in half with our wire cutters.  So we now have two pieces, our power strip with a set of exposed wires and a 3-prong cord with a set of exposed wires.  You will notice 3 wires inside.  A black wire, a white wire, and a green wire.

Use a razor blade to cut off the plastic sheath that is surrounding the 3 wires.  Now that we have our 3 wires exposed, go ahead and cut the 2 green wires out of the way as we will not need them.  Use the wire strippers to expose about a half inch of wire on both white wires and both black wires.  Now take the 20ft 2-prong extension cord and cut the male end off.  Go ahead and strip off about a half-inch on both of those wires (You can run a razor blade down the middle and separate the two wires to make it easier working with the wires individually).  Now if you look closely at the 20ft 2-prong extension cord, there is a series of lines or grooves running along the side of one of the wires, and the other wire is smooth.  Take the wire with the lines running along the side and use a wing nut to connect it to the white wire that is attached to the 3-prong cord.  Take the other smooth wire from the extension cord and attach it to the white wire coming from the power strip with a wing nut.  Connect the two black wires from the power strip and the 3-prong cord with a wing nut.  So now what we have is the two black wires connected to each other again and the two white wires have our modified 20ft 2-prong extension cord added.

Basically, what we have done is created a break in the electricity by adding in our extension cord.  The connection will be made when our relay closes in our controller.  Now we can use electrical tape to wrap everything up and keep it clean and safe.  That's it, our power strip is done.  I also wrote the channel number on each of the power strips to make it easy to tell which channel went to which power strip.  We need to make 8 of these for each of the 8 individual channels in our controller.

We now need to build the box for our 8-channel controller.

The bottom of the controller has electricity running through it so it is very important we have something plastic to keep the controller in.  I picked up a Snapware plastic storage box from Target for less than $10 bucks.

Go ahead and drill 8 holes into the front of the plastic box using our ¼" drill bit.  Now take another 20ft 2-prong extension cord and cut off the female end this time.  Expose and separate the two wires like before.  Do this for 8 20ft 2-prong extension cords.  (This is why we needed at least 16 20ft 2-prong extension cords.  8 for our modified power strips and 8 for our 8-channel controller.  What we are going to do is plug in the male end of the extension cord that is coming from the 8-channel controller and plug it into the female end of the modified extension cord that is attached to our power strips.  This will complete our circuit and allow electricity to flow through when the relay on the controller closes).  Now stick each individually exposed wire from the 20ft 2-prong extension cord into each of the individual holes we just drilled.  Pull each wire through the hole about 4 inches.  Now take a zip tie and zip tie around each of the wires on the inside of the box.  This will prevent us from accidentally ripping one of the wires out of the controller.

Now that we have our wires zip tied in place, we need to screw the exposed wires into the relays.  You will notice writing in front of the relays.  NC means normally closed (the lights stay on and only turn off when the relay opens), C, and NO means normally open (the lights stay off and only turn on when the relay closes).  We are concerned with C and NO.  Take the wire with lines/grooves down it and screw it into C.  Take the wire with the smooth edge and screw it into NO.  Make sure you securely screw down all of the wires and also make sure none of the wires are touching each other.  Also, don't handle the box roughly because you don't want the wires to become loose from the relays.  The last thing you want is live electricity running through the wires and then all of a sudden the wires become loose and start touching each other.  You don't want to burn down your house!  Be very careful!

All of the building is now complete.  Now I will describe how to lay everything out to get it to work properly. 

Plug a printer cable from the printer port on your computer into your 8-channel controller's port.  Plug in a 12-volt DC power supply into the 8-channel controller.  You're computer and 8-channel controller will presumably be inside in a room or in the garage.  Now take the male ends of the 20ft 2-prong extension cords that are attached to the 8-channel controller and get them outside either through a window or through the garage.  Place your modified power strips next to each of your zones and plug the female ends of the extension cords that are attached to the power strips into the male ends of the extension cords coming from the 8-channel controller.  Run the 25ft 3-prong extension cords from inside your home's wall outlets and plug them into the 3-prongs on the modified power strips.  You will have to distribute these 25ft 3-prong extension cords all throughout the house to even the load.  If you plug all of the extension cords into one spot of the house, you will blow the breakers.  We had extension cords coming from all of our bedrooms, living room, and the garage.  You will have to buy enough extension cords to be able to plug everything in.  This is the most expensive part, extension cords are not cheap.  Now that we have everything ready to go, all we have to do is plug our Christmas lights into the power strips.  The relays on the 8-channel controller are rated for 10 amps.  Each 100-bulb mini-light string is rated 1.5 amps.  I was able to plug 6 strings of lights into each power strip without blowing the controller's relays.  (8-channels with 6 strings of lights per channel is 48 individual mini light strings.  This is 4800 100-bulb mini-lights that are animatable).  You have to be careful though, if you plug anymore lights in you run the risk of frying your relays. 

Now all you have to do is load the Vixen animation software and start making sequences!

I hope you learned a lot from this tutorial and now feel completely comfortable doing this yourself.  If this is your first year animating Christmas lights, this design is by far the easiest and simplest way to get into the hobby.  If you have any further questions, please ask questions in the Comment section of this post or email me.  The contact information is listed on the Contact page.

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