Maybe I'm too late with my message,
I was at Black Sea coast for some days.
Are you sure 12V lights and motors are really AC?
If no, why not feed them with DC?
There were threads on DC/DC converters.

1. Feed your project with unstabilized 12DC.
2. Add 12V DC to 12V DC PIC-regulated converter.
    (approx $5 components)
3. Split project into channels. Feed each channel with
    PIC-regulated converter.
4. Get lamps brightness and fountain pumps power
    be correlated with music using PIC ADC.
5. Use different lamp colors, place, if possible, a lamp
    inside a water jet.
6. Add motors to rotate water jets, and so on.

 Do this one step at a time. You may stop at each
step, with the result not worse then with former AC project.

 Sorry, If I've missed something.

 Mike.

Tony Harris wrote:
> I'm trying to figure out how to use my PIC to control an AC voltage.
>
> For example:
>
> I have a fountain that has low voltage AC lights, and a set of low
voltage
> AC pumps (say 3 lights and 3 pumps, all run off of 12V AC, max all
three
> lights and all three pumps would be on.  The pumps are rated at 3.6A).
I
> want to create a program to turn on and off lights and the pumps
> at my will.
>
> Obviously, my PIC circuit is a DC circuit.
>
> So, can anyone suggest what I might be able to do in order to control
this
> AC voltage?  I don't need to funnel a lot of power, 60 watts
> (actually 43.2,
> but increasing a bit for safety) per "switch".
>
> So, the AC side would be 12V AC, the DC would be 5V DC for the PIC and
> either the LCD or perhaps LED's to indicate what is on and off.
>
> Any resources, sites, small samples would be most appreciated.

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