Right now i have the lights in my front yard complete. I finished it last year before the ground got frozen. Originally i had 6 or 7 small transformers for the lights, but with this new system i condensed it to 2 600 watt power supplies(80 Amps at 12VAC total capacity, extra for wire resistance) .

The front yard lights are divided into 8 separate circuits, all of the cables i buried into the ground. The cables that are in the ground go to a relay box on the front of the house. This relay box contains 8 relays, a fuse board, and distributes power to each of the 8 circuits. There are two CAT5e cables that i use to supply power to the relays. The CAT5e cables are run to my office, into the control box where the 0/16/16 board is. The 0/16/16 is connected to a 300Mhz Notebook, and my software is written in VB6.

Right now the back yard installation is under way, i need to buy another 500′ spool of wire, and install the lights. I will also need to dig a large hole for all of the cables and to drill a hole into a wall. It may not get done until the flowers die because there are too many flowers and bees in the back yard right now.

The control box has 16 DPDT switches representing each digital output on the 0/16/16. When the switch is switched to the left, a red led for each circuit goes on. The red LED indicates that the computer has control of the that circuit. When the switch is switched to the right, an amber LED turns on, indicating the circuit is manually turned on. When the circuit is turned on by means of the computer or manual override, a green LED will be on indicating that the circuit is on. Each relay box has a switch that is supposed to turn off all of the relays by disconnecting the 12v+ line, but because of a problem with current going the wrong direction on the control box, all of the LED’s light up and if one relay is on it stays on.

The software has two on/off settings to turn the lights on at night, and on early in the morning. Sometime in the future i’m going to rewrite the software to add new features. I plan to get a garage opener receiver(we don’t have a garage) in each of our cars so if i get home late from somewhere, and its past the time that the lights turn off, i can press the garage opener button and the lights will turn on for 10 minutes.

Another modification to this system, is i’m going to be using an Phidgets RFID, a servo controller, and another IO board to lock and unlock our front door and sliding door. This modification to the doors will require an exit button. I plan to put a photocell outside that will let the computer know when it gets dark.
If it is dark out and someone presses an exit button it will unlock the door, and turn the lights on. This computer controlled door lock could also turn into an alarm system.

The following link is some of my pictures before i fully computer controlled the lights. http://www.bgsmedia.com/projects/malibu/?page_id=3

here is a screen shot of my original program
http://bgsmedia.com/images/interface.jpg
and a photo of the control box.
http://bgsmedia.com/images/control.jpg

http://malibu.bgsmedia.com/

As of now the front yard Malibu Landscape lights are fully computer controlled.

Enjoy the photos

Now something for search engines

I plan to Control Landscape Lights from a computer. The Malibu lights are controlled by a computer, with special software  i wrote