Propeller Powered Christmas Lights and the Griswold FX - Rudolph 16

Inspiration Author: 
ke4pjw (Parallax Forum Member)
  • The Grizwold FX Rudoph 16 Control Board
  • Breadboard circuit.

I would like to submit my propeller powered Christmas lights project that has been ongoing for the past few years. The lights are controlled by a 16 channel Propeller powered controller that I call the "Rudolph 16". These controllers receive DMX-512 from a Propeller powered PC interface I call the "DMX Director". The DMX Director connects to the PC via USB. In order to ensure the Prop could swallow the needed data stream quickly without error, I utilized a FTDI245 USB to parallel serial interface. I modified the FDS object to work with the FTDI245 and uploaded to the OBEX. It took the better part of a year to design the boards and write the software in my spare time. Starting off, I knew nothing of Propeller and only had worked with basic stamps. The "shows" are generated using a shareware PC program called "Vixen". I wrote a plugin for Vixen to talk to my "DMX Director".

This show has 96 DMX-512 channels available, with the "Mega Tree" being 64 of those channels. My wife created all of the shows that we display during the Christmas season.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Where can we get a Rudolph 16 board? So cool!