Frequently Asked Questions FAQ for LauderdaleChristmas.com Christmas Lights Display

Common Questions People Ask About Our
Lauderdale Christmas Display
LauderdaleChristmas.com is located at 7706 NW 25 St., Margate, FL 33063

Q: When do you setup your display and how long does it take?
A: We usually setup the day before Thanksgiving and get the display 75% up by that Sunday. Then we spend the rest of the Advent calendar time incrementally adding lights to our display, at a rate of about 500 lights per day.

Q: Who do your donation boxes collect food and money for?
A: We are members of First Presbyterian church of Coral Springs/Margate. We collect food for our church and local food banks. 100% of the money goes to our Mercy Ministry with 0% overhead to help the poor. When you visit us please bring food/cash donations. Tell your friends & coworkers to do the same.

Q: How Many Lights are on your display?
A: As of 12/7/2009, we have about 60,000 Christmas lights on our display, and 100% of them are LED Chris tmas lights and LED rope lights. We do not have one single string of incandescent lighting on our display. Even our "tune to" sign has LED rope light backlighting.

Q: How much does your utility bill go up?
A: Contrary to intuitive thinking, our bill does not increase very much. Our December, 2007 bill was only $95 more than November. LED Chris tmas lights use 20% of the power of regular incandescent lights. Also, with my lights synchronized to music, at any instant in time half my Chris tmas lights are off. The average power over the evening is that of only half the lights! We expect our bill to go up no more than $100 over November.

Q: How do you get the lights to dance to the music?
A: We use Eight 16-channel lighting controllers from Light-O-Rama, with 128 channels of lighting. We read in a song off a CD and use sequencing software to orchestrate a sequence file like old player piano rolls, from scratch creating a symphony of lights. This tedious process takes 7 hours per minute of music. One complex sequence, David Foster's Carol of the Bells, took 30 hours over 5 days. The software allows me to simulate how my lights will look before I load sequences into lighting controllers in my yard. My sequences are stored on a tiny SD card with MP3 files for the songs. The main controller tells all light channels every 1/10 of a second whether a channel is on, off, twinkling, fading, etc. I also transmit the music to your car radio on FM 100.9.

Q: How do you get the music to transmit to my car radio?
A: Inside the main lighting controller is an MP3 card playing the songs that my Christmas lights are sequenced to. That audio output is fed up to my roof where I have a Ramsey FM30 low power transmitter, which transmits the audio to your car radio on an unused FM station, in my case 100.9 FM. The FCC allows this as long as you transmit on an unused radio station. The transmitter works up to the stop sign 200 hundred feet up the street.

Q: What hours do you operate your display?
A: It runs 5:30 PM to 10:30 PM. Few visitors drive by after 10 PM, so the timer cuts off at 10:30. On weekends, sometimes we leave it up another hour, but don't bank on it. If there is light rain, we still operate, but under heavy rain, GFI circuits trip, so it's a crap shoot if you drive over in the rain. Visit our web site to view videos, photos, and How To tips at http://www.lauderdalechristmas.com .

Q: When will you take down your display?
A: We will probably run it though Jan 9, 2010, it comes down on Jan 10. We usually have to take it down on a Saturday.