Our original idea was to have Christmas tree lights strung about and you could play them like a giant harp. (the hand held controller is our backup idea in case this is impossible) Still not sure how to trigger them (capacitance?(would be ideal) light sensors?(not as ideal but will work)) but the animated their display part of this is going to work (pending receiving parts in a timely fashion) It turns out there is a community of people who put on Christmas tree decorated lawn shows shows that blink/flash/sequence the lights to music. This is done through controller packs similar to DMX-512 stage show lighting packs (the kind used in stadium concerts, etc) but less powerful (2 amps per channel - plenty for a string of lights but not for a simulated volcano) and waaaay cheaper since they are a DIY project. So I finally found someone selling the PCB boards off season and Mouser has the parts and we'll hook it up to be controlled by whatever we feel like (that can spit out a serial signal). The specific board I decided on (it was available and did what we needed) is the Renard 16SS -- 16 channel, onboard SSR (solid state relays (just triacs I think))
Some interesting links:
Good Overview:
http://www.dv-fansler.com/Computer%20Lights/computer_lights.htm
General Wiki:
http://www.christmasinshirley.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
There is a forum http://doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/index.php , however the defaults display modes on the forum make it completely confusing for a newbie. (I prefer the classical pronunciation) as everything seems to display backwards (latest post first - so you have to go to the last post of any thread to follow a conversation)
The other major forum:
http://diylightanimation.com/index.php?board=21.0
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