The Merry Twitter Tree

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Exhibition
#1

Here's my first live full scale Arduino project:

http://www.merrytwittertree.com/

The basic idea is having the lights on the Christmas Tree turning on everytime someone tweets "Merry Christmas".

It's still pretty much a prototype but you get the idea. Sometimes the live stream gets out of synch with the tweet overlays, but generally it stays on track.

The actual setup is really all based off a lot of relays running 12V 1W LED's. I started out with 10W halogens and after a few burnt tree branches I decided to try and find an LED which gave off as little heat as possible! It also meant a 20Amp powerpack could run all 30 lights.

Any feedback welcome! (I'm sure there is an easier way to wire this :)

Photos below:

Actual tree:

board wiring 1:

board wiring 2:

board wiring 3:

Rough schematic of how it all works:

#2

That is an immense row of relays :D

I think I'd have gone with lower power ultra bright ones and some transistor packages but each to their own. ;)

Looks great, bet it's bright!

#3

thanks mowcius!

Do you have any links to the type of LED you mentioned. I had a look around but just couldnt find something that would do the job. Would be good to know for next time!

#4

Next time you could try using something like these: http://hackaday.com/2010/12/01/hacked-led-christmas-lights/ Essentially you can hack them so that they are individually addressable lights. You wouldn't need any other external components, just your arduino.

That is a cool project though.

#5

If you need a lot of lights, you could build a box like below and control it from the arduino instead of a pc parallel port.

http://computerchristmas.com/christmas/link-how_to/HowToId-4/How_To_Build_A_Parallel_Port_Controller_Box

#6

Thanks for the heads up, I think those examples might make next years lights a little easier to wire up!

#7