The loyal minions of the Grinches are the SSRs (Solid State Relay) which control the actual off and on of the light elements out in the yard and on the house. Each are made up of a number of individual parts all acting to perform the Grinches' bidding. We built our SSRs from scratch more or less using a pre-etched circuit board from Austrailia. We populated each board with parts bought from USA companies as shown below at center. In the front of the board is the connector coming from the Grinches that leads to 4 smaller circuits which in turn control the TRIACs. TRIACs are electronic AC switches and generate a lot of heat doing their job. To the right is a heatsink made from a carpet step bar using it to draw away heat from the TRIACs keeping them cool. On the left is a power distrubution block made from a pair of standard AC outlets with the neutrals (white wires) sharing a common path to the circuit board. Each socket on the block is independant and each has a hot wire (black wires) leading to the circuit board. On the pieces of wood in the block are pieces of masking tape to identify the job of each socket. As the system evolves each year, each SSR may change its job but pretty much performs the same function.
Shown below is the screen VIXEN uses to display current patterns of the Light Show. Black lines represent items which are being used as props, such as the star, house, trees and fences. Yellow lines represent AC lines running from the light elements to the SSRs shown as a red block. AC lines will connect SSRs to branch lines and then to trunk lines leading back to the panel boxes supplying the whole system with power. Multiple layers of systems acting as one make for a really nice display of blinky flashy. For our first year of computer controlled lights, we decided to only use half the capacity of our system because we didn't have enough resources and time to get everything online before Christmas. With the basic system in place this year, it will be easy to add the other half and upgrade the display with almost double the lights next year! Its amazing that with only 16 SSRs with a combined total of 64 channels, so much brillance can be created to bring joy and wonder to all that see it.
