A while back a co-worker hit me up over the weekend and said “hey! I found this thing you want it?!?”

Once finding out what “it” was I said sure..

Haha.. you know what “it” was, and you wanted it.

Really? That’s how we are going to start this?

After getting through hurricane irma and halloween season I was able to start looking into this a little more.

It’s this! A Light-o-Rama 16 channel light sequencer.

So it came with software and everything right? Worked out of the box? Sweet

Why? Seriously…

No, it did not come with software.

But I was able to do some digging and figured out it will work with an RS485 to RJ45 serial connection and using the DMX protocol.

DMX protocol? That ^&*% sounds scary.

For once Im gonna agree with you. Not sure what his “protocol” is but I agree.

So anyways. I hook it up and …. nothing. No signal. Hmmmm.

Time to hit the forums! www.doityourselfchristmas.com to the rescue. I found a post that mentioned that LOR (light-o-rama) decided to swap 2 pins.

That’s some dumb shit stuff there..

I know. But that got it working. So I have my laptop able to turn some christmas lights on and off via a testing app. Cool. But not cool enough.

Next step fool!

So we need to sequence this thing.

Different kind of sequence. Time for Vixen3!!

No! Vixen 3!!!

Are you for real with this?

Sorry, Christmas. I forgot.

Thank you.

*smh*

Anyways. Vixen 3 is a nice piece of software for doing light sequencing to music. So I start playing with that and get a few little tests together and run it from my laptop and the LIGHTS ARE WORKING!!!

Enter the raspberry pi!

Ok tons of fun haven’t you had enough pie?

Not that…. it’s a…. shut up.

So with a RASPBERRY PI COMPUTER!!! I load up an image for something called “falcon pi player“. Configure up my connection to the LOR and click the “test” check box. ALL THE LIGHTS TURN ON!!!!! Awesome. We are SO CLOSE. So export the sequence from Vixen 3 and upload all the assets (sequence file, media) and create a playlist. Now lets run it!

Oh man… it’s working. This is too cool.

I drove past your house, you don’t have any lights up yet.

*deep breath* Ignore him, he doesn’t exist.

You don’t exist.

You are right. My lights aren’t up. But I got everything working and even created a preview!

So next step is the wife has started putting up some lights and we should finish over the weekend!!