Light Up Your Next Holiday Concert with This LED Christmas Tree PCB

from hackster.io

It’s Christmas time, or at least close enough, meaning lights, sounds, and various seasonal decorations. To get yourself in the holiday DIY (holi-DIY?) spirit, check out this MIDI-controlled Christmas tree PCB kit, available for purchase on Tindie.

When assembled, the tree connects to a keyboard via a standard MIDI interface. It’s programmed to respond to notes C, D, E, F, G, A, and B by sequentially lighting up LED ornaments arranged on the little tree’s PCB branches. The PCB is sort of a stripped-down Arduino Uno, featuring an ATmega328P microcontroller that receives MIDI inputs and controls the LEDs.

The tree looks like a lot of fun to have blinking away to the tune near your keyboard, though when not in use, the MIDI port makes a nice stand for placement on flat surface. One could also employ a MIDI splitter to control multiple trees at the same time if you want to get really luminescent with your keyboard carols!

Of course, if you want to go even further with this MIDI tree, the ATmega328P could be plugged into an Arduino Uno for reprogramming, either for new musical behavior, or to simply have it blink automatically as a more traditional ornament

Code is available on GitHub for modification and/or inspiration!