Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!mcdphx!citek.UUCP!hbg6 From: hbg6@citek.UUCP (John Schuch) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: Christmas Lights Message-ID: <12149@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com> Date: 11 Dec 89 17:02:04 GMT References: Sender: listen@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com Reply-To: hbg6@citek.UUCP (John Schuch) Organization: Motorola Microcomputer Division, Tempe, Az. Lines: 20 I built up a little chase light controller from salvaged parts last year and it worked fairly well. It's simply an oscillator, a binary counter, a BCD to decimal decoder, and four solid state relays. The relays are the only expensive parts and they could probably be replaced with a cheaper alternative. By changing the wiring of the relays, various chase effects can be generated. This year, it's driving four strings of lights attached to a nine foot star on my roof. There is a specialized light controller chip which drives relays for a lot of different effects but I decided it was overkill given the cost and complexity of the circuit. ( but then I'm driving single strings of lights with 20 amp relays, if that's not overkill, what is? :-)) More info if you want it. JS