Flicker Light Controller Made from Christmas Lights

**madmax** · 09-03-2010,10:40 AM

First step: What you will need to make this. Find a set of Christmas lights that has a control box on the end. Thrift stores and Yard sales are the best place.

You will need a electrical outlet and a box to house it in

Step two: I will have to explain because I failed to take a picture

1. There should be 5 wires coming from the controller.
2. Four of the wires will have a set of Christmas lights. Each wire will have a different color light
3. One wire will be the common wire and it wont have any lights connected to it
4. Take a wire and follow it till you come to the light. Cut the wire right below the light
5. Repeat step four till you cut all four sets of lights off
6. The last wire and at this point it should be the longest and not have any lights connected to it is the COMMON wire. Put a piece of tape on this wire (around it) so you can remember it is the common wire.

Step 3: You should end up with a controller and five wires (each one should be longer than the other) that look like this. In the picture you can see how I put tape on the common wire.

Step 4: (This step is just to keep everything neat You can by pass it if you want to.)

1. Cut the four light wires (not the common) and trim them to about the same length. Also trim the common wire but leave it longer so you don't get it mixed up with the four wires, also keep a piece of tape on it.

2. You will only be using two of the wires that had lights on them ( not the common wire) so I put a piece of tape over the end and tape them together.

3. The wires will be loose so put pieces of tape around them starting at the controller and going up to the two wires you aren't using.......Confused yet? Don't worry it's easier than I'm making it sound. You will see in the next step.

Step 5: Putting it together

1. Put your wires through the hole in your electrical box . In this picture you can see how I used the tape in step 4.

2. Your electrical outlet will have screws on both sides of it...gold/brass and silver. Over the screws (on both sides brass & silver) there will be a tab. This tab connects both outlets (top & bottom) together. The silver screws will be the common side of the outlet.

3. On the brass screw side take a pair of pliers and break off the tab. Once you do that the top & bottom outlet will act independent of each other. DON'T do this to the silver side. This is a bad picture but this is what it should look like (picture below will show it more clearly)

4. Next strip off some of the wire from the ends of the wires. Take the two wires that had lights on them (not the common) and connect one to each of the brass color screws.

5. Take the common wire and connect it to EITHER of the SILVER screws. Since we left the tab on this side, one wire will act as the common for the top & bottom outlets.

**madmax** · 09-03-2010,10:40 AM

6. Tuck the wires in the box and connect the outlet to the box and you are ready to use it

I'm using a indoor box for this tutorial....if you are using this outside use a outdoors electrical box (cost a few cents more but not much). The green screw on the outlet is the ground and it isn't used. You can also use a wire connector to keep your wires from pulling out of the electrical box.....or you can use tape.

Here is the reason I left the two unused light wires on the controller and tapped them up. You can turn this into a 4 way outlet where each outlet works independent of the other. (4 lights chasing).

Total cost for my controller was $1.75. I got the lights at a yard sale for .50
Work time for me was 15 minutes....it will take longer the first time you make one. The first one I made was around 5 or 6 years ago and I believe it took around 1 hour but I didn't have pictures to follow

I will post videos of the effects you can get with this.