The MK1 Show Controller
"OK so the MK1 show controller
was not a thing of beauty but was
what was needed for the time"
After years of planning, Learning and a house move it was finally time to started the prep for our first Christmas Light show, it all started in the summer of 2019 with finding a local person selling there light show on Facebook marketplace ( for some strange reason he wanted to rebuild a classic car ). so after going and picking up the Lights the size of the task hit me like a train.
From the very beginning of planning I had decided that I didn't want to to run show every 10 minutes, 30 minutes or hourly I wanted people to be able to start a song at the push of a button that way there would not be crowds of people waiting (and upsetting the neighbour).
SO with that in mind I started to build, let's call it the MK0.5 show controller (The one that never came to be), a big red button that when pressed thought the magic of a customer server setup would pick a random song and play the show and then return the house to a stand-by.
But that year it was just not meant to be, the run up to Christmas was taken by a family trip to meet the Mouse him self at Walt Disney World, so the light show went on hold until 2020.
Yep 2020 started as any other year over at my Mum and Dads and as far as we knew it at this point it was going to be a great year and this was the year the show was going up Christmas 2020 and the announcement out on Facebook no excuses this year and then march hit, but work carried on and even more than ever I wanted the show running to bring some happiness to people.
With my desk covered in cable and circuit boards it was going well, we were expecting our second later in the year and both me and my wife had been stuck in the house since March (apart from hospital visits) as we were on the Highly Vulnerable list. when my Wife Maria comes up to me and says "I know you have been working on this for a while but just think about it" and with that I sat there and thought and thought some more and maybe a bit more.
Then it hit me NO ONE IS GOING TO WANT TO TOUCH A BUTTON
And with that in mind the MK1 was born, OK so the MK1 show controller was not a thing of beauty but was what was needed for the time, a controller that was contactless so back on to Amazon (Prime was a god send in this time) and I ordered some part with no Idea how I was going to pull this thing off, but after some hard work and a lot of googleing I had a working prototype.
The MK1 Build
Brilliant it work but I can't put that outside, well as you can see in the video I was also in to 3D printing and that can in very handy, I set about on my largest design to date a enclosure for this mess I was calling "The Contactless Show Start".
Initial Case Design
Initial PCB and Firmware Design
Fusion 360 Designs
The Final Product
It was a lot of work but it worked and it got use thought the 2020 show session
The MK1 Working
Now days the MK1 spends it days hanging on the wall, reminding me that I can do this and to keep on improving the show. And with it retirement well and truly under way, there was a need for a new Show Controller something a bit more reliable and water proof.
The MK1 is dead, long live the MK2 The MK2 Show Controller
Want to know more about the wiring? Check out the Gallery.