[HN Gopher] The software you need for holiday overdecoration
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The software you need for holiday overdecoration
Author : KraftyOne
Score : 139 points
Date : 2024-12-23 14:17 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dbos.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dbos.dev)
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| Wow, just wow :D! I am always amazed at the folks who sink so
| much time, money and energy into this.
|
| I will never be one, but I really appreciate all you fanatics
| going completely crazy with the lights etc. :D
| yodon wrote:
| Fun use of DBOS!
| dawnerd wrote:
| I almost setup xLights this year. Glad I didn't since that's a
| whole rabbit hole I don't have time for!
| jedberg wrote:
| Join us!! It's the perfect hobby for nerds. It starts with big
| DIY projects with lots of PVC and zip ties and 3d printing.
| Then you do a bunch of small electronics with solder and
| microcontrollers. And then you get to do programming and some
| basic networking to set it all up.
|
| I got started in Dec 2020 when I couldn't go anywhere and my
| show grows every year.
|
| I'll admit it is a time sink. I've probably spent 120+ hours on
| it (and my wife has contributed 20ish hours as well)
| yumraj wrote:
| Any pointers on where to start?
|
| I want to do something small for next year.
| qianli_cs wrote:
| Chuck's light show is absolutely amazing! If you want to see more
| displays from him, check out: https://merryoncherry.org/
| yapyap wrote:
| thats so extra lol
| techplex wrote:
| If you are in the greater Boston area stop by:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBxB1aroSqE.
|
| Lots of animated displays in New England:
| https://www.nelights.org/
| sokoloff wrote:
| Northeast of Columbus, OH is Silent Night, Holy Lights and
| worth at least a 30 minute drive.
|
| 1215 Venetian Way, Columbus, OH 43230
| mtkd wrote:
| Leeds UK: https://x.com/HodgsonLights
| lukevp wrote:
| Buying prebuilt stuff and premade sequences seems like it'd take
| all the fun out of it, at least for me. I guess this is an area
| where some people are in it for the goal and others for the
| journey. I think either is equally valid, but it's always
| interesting to see people making different tradeoffs than I'd
| make.
| jedberg wrote:
| I mentioned this in my other comment, but the hobby is
| basically three parts -- big DIY, small electronics, and
| software/sequencing. Some people really like one or two parts
| of it. Some people will buy kits and spend all their time
| making sequences.
|
| Some will spend all their time building and then buying
| sequences.
|
| I personally end up buying sequences because I run out of time.
| I've made them before, but they take about 50 hours to make one
| song. I sadly don't have that kind of time, so I spend all my
| time making and then shortcut the end so that all the making
| serves a purpose.
| dunham wrote:
| There is a street that does this in Alameda (3200 block of
| Thompson), and I'm told they have a covenant/contract requiring
| you to overdecorate when you buy a house on that block.
| jedberg wrote:
| Sounds like my kind of neighborhood!
|
| One side effect of my overdecorating is that it's inspired my
| neighbors to put up some lights. More lighted houses every
| year!
| lobsterthief wrote:
| Sounds like an inadvertent method of preventing non-Christians
| from living on that block.
| jedberg wrote:
| I mean, I'm not Christian and I do animated Christmas
| lighting, and I love Christmas music. Also, you can do
| Hanukkah or Kwanza or just plain lights.
| yumraj wrote:
| So only folks who celebrate Christmas can buy there?
|
| Or as long as you over decorate once a year is good enough?
| ooooooooldguy wrote:
| If you're going to put a dot matrix display of images on your
| house, just cover it with LCD screens. At some point too much
| tech just makes it boring and plain.
| bgentry wrote:
| The backlight bleed of LCDs would look pretty awful at night.
| Also I'm not sure how others feel about it but to me a DIY LED
| matrix is way cooler than dropping in a prebuilt screen with
| HDMI input.
| mathgeek wrote:
| Let's not gatekeep our fun holiday light displays. Would be
| interesting to see both approaches side by side.
| jedberg wrote:
| Some people do combine those with their individual pixels. They
| will also use projection mapping. All three techniques look
| different and add to the show in different ways.
| ucyo wrote:
| Are there any good examples for apartments? I am interested in
| doing similar stuff, but don't own a house. Seems like all
| examples are from houses...
| jedberg wrote:
| Apartments are a lot harder because you can't usually drill
| into the side. I've seen some balconies on apartments in my
| area with small animations, and one person has a matrix in the
| window.
|
| But at the end of the day it's the same as house, you just have
| a much smaller canvas to work with.
|
| You'll want to look up the ESPixelStick to get started if
| you're in an apartment, it can probably meet all your needs,
| since you won't be able to do too many lights.
|
| [0] https://forkineye.com/product/espixelstick-v3/
| codetrotter wrote:
| I once had a crazy idea to build an inner frame and my own
| floor and walls onto those frames, in a room I was renting
| for a long time. I ended up not doing that, and depending on
| your situation it might not be allowed to do it (either
| because of rules from the landlord, or fire safety that you
| have to consider).
|
| I still think it's an idea worth considering in some
| situations though, as long as you are sure it's compliant
| with rules from the landlord and fire safety regulations etc.
| jedberg wrote:
| I don't know about building an entire false frame (what do
| you do with it when you move? You would lose a ton of
| interior space. Your ceilings would only be 7 feet, etc).
|
| But I've definitely seen people build a false wall that
| covered 1/2 of a real wall to make fake builtins over a
| fake fireplace. But they could take it with them when they
| left.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Yeah, the idea was to disassemble it and take it with me
| when I moved out. The inner frame would be assembled
| using screws, rather than nails and also not using any
| glue.
|
| It might take several days, or even a couple of weekends
| if you have busy days during Mondays to Fridays, to
| disassemble it. And that's if you originally built the
| whole thing in one go and kept in mind and made notes of
| how to disassemble it.
|
| The worst situation is if your lease suddenly ends on
| short notice and you don't have time to disassemble it on
| the time you have left before you have to leave.
|
| Another thing is that even if you disassemble it on time,
| the dimensions of your frame probably won't fit well into
| the next room you rent in a different place. And then you
| have to do a bunch of cutting and maybe buying even more
| materials or throwing away some of what you had, or find
| somewhere to store it or something.
|
| There's also the possibility that you might accidentally
| damage the original floor or walls even though you try to
| be super careful, if you go about constructing such a
| thing.
|
| These sorts of potential complications are part of the
| reason that I ended up not actually building such a thing
| myself so far. Aside from also not having much in terms
| of extra cash on hand at the time to even go buy the
| materials I would have needed for it.
|
| The half wall you suggested is far more practical for
| sure.
| ucyo wrote:
| Fire safety rules are a good point. Wasn't thinking about
| that aspect. But using outdoor compliant lights and hanging
| from frames outsides could be an option. Guess it would be
| an interesting start
| ucyo wrote:
| Oh nice. Thanks for the hint. It seems like a good starting
| point.
| slater wrote:
| Maybe one thing you could do if you have large enough windows
| so people would see: in-door wall projection, e.g. something
| like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtFthRSqRwQ but
| interior?
| ucyo wrote:
| Waking up in the middle of the night to pee will be the icing
| on the cake for the neighbours
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