99 Blevens Drive Manchester NH
How much power does your show consume?
Our show currently is estimated to peak at 18000 watts and is distributed across 10 separate 115 V / 15A and 20A circuits.
What software do you use to program the lights?
We use Lightorama S5 software to sequence the lights. Our video content is edited using Adobe Premier Pro. Text to screen programming is using Twilio.com, python, and php.
What is your electric power bill?
Since our lights are not on all at once for long periods of time the overall average power consumption is low. Last year our electric bill was only 25 dollars higher than usual in December.
Where do you get your lights from?
Almost all items you see are custom built. Most of our components are purchased from holidaycoro, lightorama, and wowlights. We custom assemble the items as needed to support the configuration. Other items are reused NSI dimmers or random items from our theater gear.
How do you attach everything to your house?
We mostly use binder clips and theater tie line to attach everything in place to our house. In non-holiday season there is no evidence of any lights.
What is your coolest effect?
We like to think all of them are cool. The custom RGB candles in the windows are one of our favorites. The leaping arches were a modified design from the johnsonfamilylightshow.com. Controlling the pre-lit tree lights was a challenge and getting the fog and bubble machines under control used some Digikey parts.
How many lights are in your show?
Our 2019 show currently has over 5100 lights with more than 5500 control channels.
What control protocols are you using?
Our dimmers are controlled via lightorama's RS-485 protocol, DMX, or MPX (via DMX). RGB items are either DMX or ethernet E 1.31 because of the high channel counts.
When do you start setting up?
We are always planning. January has a lot of sales so we usually have the next season's plans put together. In October we setup about 1/4 of the lights and then in early December the rest get put up. Programming and video editing is a year round activity.
How does texting my name end up on the screen ?
We use a text to app service from twilio. When you text your name to our house, twilio forwards that to our webserver php script which checks for a valid first name against the US social security database. If the name passes it ends up in a file list on the server. Our raspberry pi connected to a projector in the garage runs a python script which checks the file for new names and then displays them on the screen.
How can we reach you?
Email is the best way at pdusaitis@yahoo.com or send us a message on facebook.