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  • Trips
    • 2022 >
      • 2022 Tennessee
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    • 2021
    • 2020 >
      • 2020 Sierras
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      • 2019 Crater Lake
      • 2019 Westside Regional Park
    • 2018 >
      • 2018 So.California
      • 2018 Colorado-Arizona
      • 2018 Banff-Jasper
      • 2018 Osoyoos, BC
    • 2017 >
      • 2017 Olympic
      • 2017 Channel Islands
      • 2017 Eclipse
    • 2016 >
      • 2016 Glacier-Yellowstone
      • 2016 Southwest
    • 2015 >
      • 2015 Bryce-Zion
      • 2015 Lava Beds
      • 2015 Bristlecone-Yosemite
      • 2015 July first trip
    • 2014 >
      • 2014 Utah
    • 2011 >
      • Gold Beach
  • Camping Map
  • Our Escape
  • Radio and Hobbies
    • Amateur Radio Commentary >
      • AREDN
      • Antenna on mast
      • Winlink
    • Christmas LED Display
    • Scripts for Growing Classes >
      • 12- WeatherFIles
      • 11- sketch_MorseCodeDecoder.ino
      • 2e-RGB-LED
      • 2f-RGB-LED-GUI
      • 2g-RGB-LED-GUI
      • 3a-thermometer.py
      • 3b-thermometer-plus
      • 4a_DHT_simpletest.py
      • 4b_DHT_send_temperature.py
      • 4c_DHT_send_temperature_LED.py
      • 4c_DHT_send_temp.service
      • 4d_DHT_send_temp_LED_OLED.py
    • Winlink for Field Day 2020
    • VE Credentials
    • Antenna Analyzer Code
  • Collegedale Tax Prep
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Christmas LED display

This year, 2020, with the pandemic restrictions, we decided to stay at home, and the kids are not joining us.

In the Glass fire, our favorite Christmas Tree farm burned so we would have to find a new place to get a tree.  Since it is just us, we decided to not get a real tree.

Then I found this: How To Make a Cheap WS2811 LED Display Matrix with a Raspberry Pi
Well, we decided to build one to be a virtual Christmas Tree.  
When a neighbor first saw it, he commented that is was pretty nerdy.  At first, I thought, oh well, and then I thought, thank you very much!

For those who are interested, some technical details.  I followed Andrew Oakley's basic design.  I bought one set of LED lights through Amazon, but they didn't work.  I returned them and got a different brand, ALITOVE WS2811 RGB LED Pixels Light
They worked.  We set them in a 9 high by 11 wide matrix.  We hung them in our front slider door and we have our virtual tree and more.  I had a 15V 16A power supply from Justin and I got a buck converter that lowered the voltage to 5V.

I tried to get Andrew's program working but haven't yet been able to convert it to the latest Python3 and Adafruit library.  And Christmas is coming, so I started with the sample program on Adafruit's library, and then built the tree.  Jennifer saw the color displays and suggested changing them to spell Ho, Ho, Ho.  And so we did that.

The file below is the python program.  I had to add the .txt so my website would allow me to upload it.
​
neopixel_rpi_christmas.py.txt
File Size: 8 kb
File Type: txt
Download File

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