Meijer Fiber Optic Tree Arduino Cheerlights Hack

Not much time. Just wanted to mention that I brought the cheeriobot out again this year! I went to Meijer and they had a "December Home" branded fibre optic all crude oil made fiber optic lighted Christmas tree on sale. 19.99 --> 14.99. Bought it. In it's original state it looked like this (I added the ornaments, of course, fastened with zip ties). 9 LEDs came as standard light source. There were 3 red ones, 3 blue ones, and three green ones, I think. See photos.

Looking into the opening where you stick the tree:

Well, it didn't last long in that original state. The strands are way to colorful. Plus, I wanted to hook it up to CHEERLIGHTS again. So out with the original module. Just unscrewed the bottom and top plate, and took all that nonsense out. Then put the breadboard with my own RGB LEDs in there. (Reclustered them later)

Reclustered the LEDs. 9 single color LEDs in the original setup, replaced with 9 RGB LEDs, hooked up to the ARDUINO UNO with ETHERNET shield. Reused last years code. Retuned the R/G/B values for the common cathode LEDs. It was a remix, lol. BTW, does anyone know the correct resistor values to use when using 3 LED clusters in series with 3 LEDs per cluster in parallel? Damn, I wish I payed attention in electronics class lol.

Then just simply put the old enclosure / stand over on top, plugged in the ethernet cord, uploaded the code, and boom, roasted. Done with my very own 2012 CHEERLIGHTS-following $15 fiber optic Christmas tree.

DONE! See below. My tree is now quietly and patiently following CHEERLIGHTS (no rebel mode [yet?] this year). Likes.

PLEASE GO AHEAD AND CHANGE THE COLOR OF MY TREE AND ALL LIGHTS WORLDWIDE THAT ARE HOOKED UP TO CHEERLIGHTS, BY TWEETING YOUR COLOR REQUEST TO @CHEERLIGHTS! :)