Arduino controlled lights

Last Christmas was my first Christmas in my very own house (was renting before) and so I was able to put up more lights than before.  In the process of setting up the lights I thought about making them computer controlled (so as to sync to music etc)

I had some X10 appliance modules which did the job for turning them on/off at the right times of day, but there was so much lag that I couldn’t use it for anything fancy.  As such I started looking around for how to do this properly.  Most of the stuff I found was only available in the US and/or was very expensive so I figured I’d just do it myself :-)

To that end for Christmas my wife bought me an Arduino and various little bits.  I then spent a while learning how to program it.  Then after a bit more time I began work on an arduino controlled power box.  At long last I have finished it (hardware-wise - better software is still to come)

So that others may get some benefit from my testing I figured I’d blog how I made it. I’ll split the build up into a few posts for easier digestion - The box, the hardware and finally the software.

Here goes nothing.