On Sun 27 Apr 2008 06:25:30a, Mark Lloyd told us...
Great idea... Are these anything like the X-10 devices? I used these in a previous home for all interior lighting, either in wall switches or plug-in modules.
An easy way to do this is to put an SSR in a Bell Box with a 120v cordset, receptacle and a low voltage cable going to a wall wart. Plug the wall wart into the timer controlled strings and plug the power to another circuit. Then you are still controlling additional lights with the timer but you are using another circuit.
[snip]
There are not powerline-carrier devices, but hardwired (temporarily). I have my holiday lights flashing at about 1Hz. X10 devices are too slow for this. I have the relays linked using 6-wire telephone-type cable. The relays themselves are installed in plastic electrical boxes along with the controlled receptacles. They are located inside and plugged into a GFCI, with cords going out windows. The control signal comes from an old computer (Pentium 166) through a simple RS232-level buffer I built with a MAX233 IC.
BTW, The wires are assigned like this:
1 (white) exclusion line. This is on when the lights are and can be connected to NC relays to disable things that shouldn't be used at the same time as the holiday lights.2 (black) lights on (+12V from wall-wart will be present from sunset to 10PM).
3 (red) flash 1. Output from computer serial port to flash lights. The computer switches the DTR line (connected to this) to say "Happy Holidays" in Morse code.4 (green) flash 2. Logical NOT of above. However, both these lines can be made active to turn all lights on to take still pictures.
5 (yellow) ground. As you might have guessed, I originally planned this for 4 wires.6 (blue) [reserved for future use]
These wires carry no voltages outside the range of -10V to +12V. The normal current is no higher than the few mA needed to operate the SSRs.
I do that, with long (low voltage) wires between them so all my lights come on and flash together. I have some pictures of the lights at
You can't see the flashing in the pictures, but one side of the yard flashes "Happy Holidays" (or other sayings) in Morse code and the other side flashes out of phase (so there's always some lit).
All these used to require 7 circuits, but since most of the colored lights are LEDs, that's 4 circuits now. I now use 9 SSRs: 4 for always-on stuff, 4 for flashing lights, and 1 (NC) to disable an electric heater while the lights are on.
On Sun 27 Apr 2008 02:31:41p, Mark Lloyd told us...
Very interesting installation! I'm sure it's really very nice, but I doubt I personally would have the patience to put it together. I think they call that "lazy". :-)
On Sun 27 Apr 2008 02:43:53p, Mark Lloyd told us...
That's a beautiful holiday display!
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