2025 Portable Christmas Light Show
Problem
In 2024, my NSBE chapter participated in the Montgomery Christmas Parade. This was the first year of doing it and we were not properly prepared. I saw other organizations that participated had all kinds of lights on their floats and vehicles.
Solution
In 2025, I decided to do a mobile or portable version of the Christmas light show that I do at my house. It was very much scaled down, because you cannot put that much stuff on a vehicle. I was able to use the same songs, but added additional elements and props to the existing sequences so that I did not have to reduce the entire show setup.
Technology
- Falcon Pi Player
- Raspberry Pi 3B+
- Buc-ee’s 6 ft Inflatable
- 2x White blow mold candy canes with 3 LED Christmas lights
- 4x 3-set red candy canes with incandescent bulbs
- 1 generator to supply 120VAC
- FM transmitter
- sound system
- 2x 8-channel solid state relays
- Red, Blue, and Green flood lights connected using trailer wire
- Xlights is used to create the sequences and time the music to the lights
Song List
- All I Want for Christmas - Lil Jon f/ Kool-Aid Man
- Baby Shark
- Nutrocker - Trans-Siberan Orchestra
- Christmas Time Is Party Time - Luke
Other Details
Prior to participating in the parade, I used the radio station locator, to find a vacant frequency to transmit the audio over. Due to the signal not being strong enough, the sound system would not play the audio via FM radio, because the signal strength was strong enough. Thus had to rely on the vehicle sound system to play the music.
For future parades, I have considered using a 12V set up, so that the setup can be connected to the vehicle's electrical system and not require a generator. The major change would be the lights have to be replaced with 12v lights. The inflatable uses 12V output from the provided power brick, so it could connect directly to the power source.