Christmas Car Project

**sporty_drew** · 12-18-2007, 02:10 PM

Looking good

**rocksolidsr** · 12-18-2007, 05:54 PM

That is pretty impressive, I'm curious how did you power your lights and what kind of relays did you use. And if you are willing to share how did you program the lights like that

**h3rk** · 12-18-2007, 06:20 PM

I'm really impressed. I'd like to see a little of what it takes to synchronize the on/off times for the lights with the music, like a 'how to' on that part of your project. Much props.

Originally Posted by rocksolidsr

That is pretty impressive, I'm curious how did you power your lights and what kind of relays did you use. And if you are willing to share how did you program the lights like that

Have you heard of the Fusion Brain? Store.

It allows you to control relays with this small board, through USB, by your computer. That and it allows you to utilize sensors in your car to display whatever you want. Actually it has a LOT more functionality in it in the software, now. However I think Arrow wrote his own software for this if you look back through this short thread. But check out the forum, there's a lot to go through, but it's well worth doing, imho.

I'm sending a link to that video to everyone. It's a testament to the abilities of the brain, that's for sure.

**Arrow** · 12-18-2007, 06:33 PM

I used a 400W power inverter, then used the fusion brain with the relays they sell with the brain. I did write my own program that interfaced with the board. It took a lot of time to get the lights to look good because I had to program each relay to fire at the right time. I accomplished this by writing a program that recorded my mouse clicks. My program then read this data and fired a relay whenever the mouse click was recorded. I also used keypresses too so I could do up to 3 lights at a time. I had to do this for each relay. The trick was remembering when to press which keys at which times.

**turbocad6** · 12-18-2007, 06:46 PM

crazy man, great job... that's def. awesome

how the heck do you clean 1' of snow off a car covered in christmas lights? very carefully I guess

**Enforcer** · 12-18-2007, 06:55 PM

Originally Posted by turbocad6

crazy man, great job... that's def. awesome

how the heck do you clean 1' of snow off a car covered in christmas lights? very carefully I guess

Hot air leaf blower

or

Get Alex Fergusson to give a Half-time Team talk over it.

**2k1Toaster** · 12-18-2007, 07:12 PM

Very impressive! Glad to see inventive uses for the Brain!

**Arrow** · 12-18-2007, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by turbocad6

crazy man, great job... that's def. awesome

how the heck do you clean 1' of snow off a car covered in christmas lights? very carefully I guess

Yeah, I actually broke a couple bulbs in the process. I brushed off as much as I could, then went to the quarter car wash and hosed it down. The car was solid ice for a day, but no snow!! The ice actually made it look pretty cool!

**Bugbyte** · 12-18-2007, 10:07 PM

Pure genius. Nice job! Some how-to would be pretty cool so others could duplicate next year. How about a FAQ in the FAQ emporium?!

**Arrow** · 12-22-2007, 08:52 PM

Soo... Some A**hole went nuts on my car last night. I was at a bar and left my car running in the parking lot with the lights and music going. When I came out, I found my car with the candy canes broken off, the lights dangling, and the deer destroyed. They even set off my car alarm (probably what stopped further damage). I'm just ****ed that with all the lights and sound and even the car alarm, nobody did anything. They did it right in front of the windows! I'm just glad I didn't catch them in the act because I would probably regret what I would have done.

Oh well... maybe I'll do it again next year.