Great Article on Holiday Light Displays

If I ever attempted to do this sort of thing before remodeling the kitchen . . . . .

Cool article. Thanks!

Thanks, this looks like an interesting engineering project.

However, I think it would be good in another neighborhood, not mine. I'm not keen on a line of cars going by or loud music.

(Call me scrooge if you like.)

I might happen to know someone who uses one of these

Large, Well-Known On-Line Retailer

to broadcast the commercial-free music channel of choice from the cable TV package on the 0.1 watt (lo-power) setting at 88.3 MHz so he (or she) can listen to commercial-free music anywhere in the house or garage or yard on a standard FM boom-box. My understanding is that you can't much pick up the signal from more than two or three houses away so as not to anger the spectrum gods. Wise users will be sure to survey the locality for open spectrum before deciding on a tuning frequency.

This is just the thing to use for those drive-by displays.

P.S. This person also recommends adding a ferrite core to the power cord (Type 43 Fair-Rite material works well), very close to the transmitter to eliminate the noise from the crappy switching power supply used to power the unit. Wouldn't hurt to put some ferrite on the coaxial audio lines from the cable box to the transmitter for similar reasons. It is also possible to over-drive the transmitter and get distortion so the wise user will set the input level (volume) to a reasonable level. 11 is not the recommended setting.

When I think of the increased electrical profits going into old man Edison's pockets, it makes me wonder how much better if the money spent could buy little Johnny or Susie at the local orphanage a month's worth of groceries or a warm blanket to ward off winters chill.

We can do both, this is America...

LED's don't use all that much power so it isn't a ton of money you are talking about to decorate with lights these days.

The goal with lights synchronized to music is to elicit an emotional response. Decorations done right have the ability to raise someone's spirits which can make a positive difference in someones life.

Several years ago I read an interesting book, Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present, that followed a representative handful of Frisco, Texas, residents as they got ready for the holidays. The husband half of one young couple was a Christmas lights maniac. Turns out there are plenty of them in Frisco. When the author followed up a year or so later, the light fanatic had gone in with a bunch of other fanatics to buy a whole container (container-ship container) of LED lights. That's a whopping lot of lights!

I can't shake the image of "Tim the Toolman Taylor" of Home Improvements fame standing on his snowy roof and using up the power of the entire neighborhood to light his house...

This year they ordered a wind farm to power it all.

Very nice....the older you get the more ingenuity it takes haha...

I love great lights.. I do. but it's often like pac man was on the 2600.

..inflatables? I'm surprised there as big as they have become. NIMFY

One day we'll be able to buy this stuff by the yard, el cheapo. Imagine the Christmas displays then! No more Pac-Man; it'll be Call of Duty: Holiday Ops

What's that screen made of?

According to NanoLumens, the manufacturer, that is an 'LED' display (I'm guessing LED dies bonded to a flexible substrate). Highly flexible displays typically use some variant of OLED technology. OLED displays (both flexible and rigid) can even be mirrored and transparent.