Project Finished!!!! A Quick example playing from Vixen.
This is part 9 of building one of those systems to control Christmas lights and sync them with music. The intent is to use an Arduino Mega 2560, a SainSmart 16-Channel 12V Relay Module and the Vixen software package. The arduino will be pumped data from the Vixen software running on a PC via a serial connection. This data will tell the Arduino which lights to turn on and off via the relay module. The relay module will do this by turning power on and off to 16 separate 120V AC wall outlets.
I'm fairly sure the hardware part isn't going to be a big problem. More likely the use of the data coming from Vixen into the Arduino and controlling the relays at a fast speed will probably cause me the most trouble.
As it turned out the relays don't do a good job of dimming the lights. I thought this might happen. For next year I'll have to build dimmer circuits to replace the relays. Stay tuned.
Code is at: http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,135501.0.html
Code has now been moved to: http://code.google.com/p/arduino-christmas-lights-control-system-for-vixen/
