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[taylormade]

I need the best advice and I guess you guys are the ones to give it..

 I have a project that includes :
 1) 10 windows with Christmast light stirings (inside) around each window.
 2) Each window will have 3 separate strings of (LED) lights (RED, BLUE, Green) controlled separately. (3 receivers per window)
 3) The strings will fade and light in random speed and intensities so that from a distance it will appear that nearly all colors of the spectrum will be shown due to the combining of the colors of the LED's while fading.

  I've already determined that the color mixing will work, that's not the issue.
  My problem is controlling the fading and intensities.

  I want to do it using x10, and I THINK, I want to do it using Active Home modules.

  Here are the questions:

  The LED light strings are 110v. Will the dimmable lamp modules ($12.99) work for me?
  I'm a Visual Basic 6 programmer. Can I write a prog that will randomly dim and bright, and controll intensity of the strings
      and apply it to the USB controller?
  Will the USB controller be able to store a VB program once I write it so I don't have to have a dedicated PC to run this?

  If there are alternate good suggestions for my project or any part of it, please let me know.
  I have "0" experience with x10 and know enought VB6 to get me into the programming part.

  Thanks in advance for any help.

  bob

[steven r]

Well at least you've given yourself plenty of time to work out any bugs by starting early. 

The problems I see are...

• I don't expect that you'll be happy dimming the LEDs with lamp modules.
• The small sensing current is enough to have the lights glow even when off. Search the forum for more discussion on this.
• AHP doesn't support the level of randomness you need.

All that said, I wish you luck. If it can be done, someone here will come up with a way.
Post your progress.

[taylormade]

Well at least you've given yourself plenty of time to work out any bugs by starting early. 

The problems I see are...

• I don't expect that you'll be happy dimming the LEDs with lamp modules.
• The small sensing current is enough to have the lights glow even when off. Search the forum for more discussion on this.
• AHP doesn't support the level of randomness you need.

All that said, I wish you luck. If it can be done, someone here will come up with a way.
Post your progress.

'preciate the response Steven:
I'll forego the necessity of having them dim all the way down to nothing. If they are slightly on, that's ok.
I also can put a larger watage incandescent bulb in the line to bog down the load. That should take care of it.
Also, what about this question...what is the time lag from a command from a program to the time the event takes place.
If (and I know I'm in trecherous waters here) I wanted to time the lights to music, will the response time be fast enough?

[medvampire]

You might want to take a look here

http://computerchristmas.com/

and here

http://www.vixenlights.com/

If you have any more questions let me know
Steve

[dave w]

taylormade

X10 is  not a good choice if you want to animate lights to music. An ON or OFF command takes about 700ms to execute. A DIM command can take up to a couple of seconds. Also you can only send out one command at a time. Even when "batching modules" to turn OFF at the same time, if you have seven modules to batch, each module address must be sent serially followed by an OFF command. So turning seven modules OFF at once would take nearly five seconds to set up and turn them OFF. This is X10 protocol, not a controller or software limitation. You can't get around it.

X10 could be used to slowly animate color change as your first post asked,  BUT only one animation at a time (in other words you can't DIM the snowman while simultaneously brightening Rudolph). Also the leakage current from a lamp module will keep a 70 light LED string, amazing bright. Don't assume they get real dim. However this can be circumvented by putting a 7 watt incandescent night light on the same module as the LED string. The nightlight will shunt enough current to allow the LEDs to extinguish totally.

In addition to the other suggestions you might Google "Light-O-Rama" if higher cost isn't a huge factor. (approx $1K for about 16 channels and software but this is the method used for the famous "Wizards of Winter" lights to music display which made the internet rounds last year).  However, if cost IS a factor, as with most of us who use X10, check this out:

 http://www.improvementscatalog.com/product.asp?product=302358zz&dept%5Fid=20200&subdept%5Fid=20211