10. Microcontroller Christmas Music
This project will allow you to create your own music using a microcontroller. Everyone and their reindeer has created Christmas projects in the past but most of them revolve around multi-coloured flashing LEDs. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with flashing LEDs, but let’s face it, they don’t exactly stimulate the imagination? So what I’ve created for your perusal is a project to play several well known Christmas tunes using 3 channel (polyphonic) sound, with each channel having a pleasant chime effect. And all this using nothing more than a handful of common or garden components that you probably already have lying around. And yes, you can flash LEDs while the music is playing if you wish!” |
9. USB Christmas Light Mod
Instead of simply adding batteries why not power your Christmas swag from your computers USB port. |
8. Color Mixing Christmas Light Project Make some RGB computer controlled outside Christmas lights. Check out the videos of it in action (video 1, video 2). Looks like a DIY version of the Triklits. * A Macintosh OS X.3 or better (mine is a 20” iMac G5 1.8 Ghz with 768 MB RAM)
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7. LED Christmas Star
Build a PIC based Christmas star. Full instructions and code are provided. |
6. Most Advanced Electronic Christmas Tree This tree is not exactly a project but for about $30 you can own your own internet enabled Christmas tree! I think for the price this could be the start of a cool Christmas hack. An application program controls the LEDs, display and buzzer. Source code available for the application program (see below) – add your own features! The board can be used for your own application development after the Christmas – this makes this board the cheapest ARM7 development board ever! |
5. Audio Controlled Christmas Lights
Here is a simple circuit to control 110VAC things such as Christmas Lights with low voltage audio. Be careful, high voltage AC can kill you. Zedomax has also made a cool voice activated Christmas light controller that is real cool! |
4. University of Advancing Technology Christmas Tree Have a look at the cool internet controlled Christmas tree that these University students created. Here is another tree that can be controlled from the net. If you are feeling a bit more ambishious you can always go over to Komar and control all the lights in the yard! These links are sure to die shortly after Christmas though. 🙁 |
3. Parallax Christmas Tree Lighting Controller
Parallax demonstrates how versatile their microcontrollers are with Christmas tree lighting mod. Since each RC-4 board can control up to four relays, I decided that each ‘brick’ would hold four outlets and a single RC-4. The boxes could then be chained together, but grouping them like this would provide the most flexibility so that I could easily reuse them for other displays and projects. Since these will be plugged into home AC lines, I used 14 gauge wire where possible. I had decided that I would be making three of these bricks, so I needed six outlets.” |
2. Electronic Christmas Tree Ornaments
Evil Mad Scientists Laboratory has come up with some cool Christmas tree electronic ornaments. When the neighbors ask where they can buy them you can answer with, nowhere! Our micro-readerboard Christmas tree ornament displays a short message, one letter at a time, on a bright single-character alphanumeric LED display. In the animation here, the ornament is displaying the word ornament.” |
1. LED Christmas Tree
This Zedomax Christmas tree has all the bells and whistles, including a POV display that says Merry Christmas! Parts list: * 1 CUBLOC CB220 Module |
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I think this zedomax x-mas tree is overrated. Looking at the movie it is obvious it doesnt spin fast enough to make the lights form actual “circles”.
The photographs are taken with a slow shutter speed. It looks as if the tree exists from seperate rings, but it’s not like that in real life.. :/
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i hate these damned xmas lights!!!!!!
Am I the only one????
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Some of these (and I mean some!!) wouldn’t look out of place on ‘Dragon’s Den’
john
http://www.venusandmarsdating.co.uk
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Hey John,
I love the Dragons Den. It quickly became one of my favorite shows last year.
http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/
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what is this dragons den you speak of and where can I watch it?
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i need some diagrams of christmas light pls send 5 (five) to my mail
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That is REALLY COOL!! I’ve never seen an LED Christmas tree – that’s an excellent idea! Perhaps you should seek a patent. Making that tree took a lot of engineering ability!
I’ve published in physics, on the American Institute of Physics website, “Sending a Space Probe to Alpha Centauri on a Voyage of Five to Ten Yearsâ€, co-authored with D. Junker. Available at Fourth International Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion, http://www.virtualjournals.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=APCPCS&Volume=830&Issue=1. I’m also at http://ac-probe.tripod.com/.
Needless to say, I enjoy tinkering with lasers. On the still picture above, I’m able to see the words “Merry Christmas” spelled out, but on the video, I’m having a hard time fathoming it. It’s new to me, so I guess it’s a perception problem.
You know, 23 years ago I did some physics software that used graphics, and I got the same effect as can be seen on the video: the light is moving so fast, one begins to perceive it as moving backwards. It invites speculation about time travel, which is another fun topic, but probably best left for another day.
Don
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I just want to see the
diy info on the “9-volt LED Christmas tree”. I saw it on your site about a week ago, then it
just vanished. It was the geeky one that just a battery and four or five lights, that’s all.
Thanks, jef G
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Great job! well done! Thanks for the nice idea.
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I really enjoyed the article. Its always nice when you read something that is not only informative but entertaining. Thanks again, Maria Christie @ tinypocketpeople
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