Halloween project: IRL Stranger Things Christmas Lights

2026-10-25

announcements

Coming soon: Joyce Byers’ alphabet wall from Stranger Things, in real Christmas lights, up in time for Halloween. Type a word and the wall spells it, one bulb per letter.

The parts are all here, but the bulbs aren’t on the wall yet. So the video and screenshots come from the simulator, which draws the exact frames the real bulbs will get.

The simple diagram view spelling HAWKINS, one lit bulb over each letter

It’s 100 12 V C7 pixel bulbs on two strings from Wally’s Lights, driven by a QuinLED Dig-Uno running WLED. A Raspberry Pi 3 runs the show in plain Python and sends frames to the controller over a network cable.

The parts: a string of 50 C7 bulbs, a 12 V supply, xConnect pigtails, an extension cable and the Dig-Uno controller

The moments from the show work. WHERE ARE YOU answers RIGHT HERE, ARE YOU HERE blinks once for yes, CLOSE GATE taps out Will’s Morse code, and RUN sends the whole strand into the Upside Down. A few easter eggs too, like DEMOGORGON and ELEVEN.

The diagram view after spelling HAWKINS, with the wire path and where each string starts

Hanging 100 bulbs never lines up exactly, so there’s a calibrate screen for your phone: tap red or blue until the white bulb sits on the letter.

The Calibrate tab on a phone: the guess in white, red one bulb back, blue one bulb on

Plus the bring-up stuff: a wiring diagram, test patterns for each string, and a power calculator with a limiter.

Wiring diagram: 12 V supply into the Dig-Uno, a network cable from the Pi, and two strings off LED output 1

The Test tab running Strings: string 1 red, string 2 green

The full tour shows every mode in about 3 minutes. Music is the Stranger Things theme by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. Product photos are from Wally’s Lights and DrZzs.

More once it’s on the wall. Happy Halloween!