Everyone knows that one neighbor who at all times goes the additional mile when adorning for the vacations, and after taking inspiration from these giant shows of sunshine and sound, Marcelo Arredondo, Andres Sabas, and Andrea ZGuz of the Digital Cats crew determined to construct a smaller model for his or her Christmas tree utilizing the Arduino Opta micro PLC.

The crew selected to create their music-synchronized gentle present with the Opta due to its reliability and financial institution of 4 built-in relays that might be utilized to modify particular gentle strings on or off. Lining up and triggering sure lighting results for the music was all dealt with via the open-source Vixen Lights software program. In right here, the Opta was configured as a quad-channel controller that receives its instructions over a GPIO connection despatched by an Arduino UNO mediator. The PLC is programmed visually to learn a programmable enter pin for every relay after which leverage a comparator to toggle the relay when the sign is excessive.

Again within the Vixen Mild software program, the crew imported their favourite Christmas tune and started the method of charting it. First, they generated markers over the audio waveform to indicate the beats and general tempo. Subsequent, varied results had been added to the timeline which set off the lighting channels in a selected sequence. Lastly, the UNO was flashed with a sketch that allowed it to learn the incoming Serial information from Vixen over USB after which toggle its digital outputs for the Opta to register.

Extra details about this undertaking may be present in its write-up right here on Hackster.io.