a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to shine

[joebone]

i wnat to build something to add a fairly unique look to my lights.

i have designed something that i want to make happen
i have a fan motor that i put a wooden dowl on instead of the fan and i want to put LED all the way across it and be able to remotely control them individully from my booth.

   |o|   o= led light
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
 (||)    (||)= reciever
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|
   |o|



how the heck do i control all of them???????

 

[Benm]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

I suggest you google for "propeller clock" - i think that's sort of what you want but i'm not entirely sure from your diagram.

 

[joebone]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

I suggest you google for "propeller clock" - i think that's sort of what you want but i'm not entirely sure from your diagram.

i can see how you would think that..

imagin an airplane prop with LEDs all the way across. i want to be able to control each one individually. kinda like those fireworks taht you nail to a tree that spin that make an illusion of a complete circle.

 

[moond0ggie]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

It looks like an ambitious project,
you will need wiper contacts for each LED to achieve individual control of them.

 

[joebone]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

what are wiper contacts....

i wnat this to happen but i have no fuking idea on how to do it..
i will eventually get it or try something else that will be as cool
i would love for anyone that knows anything about this to help me out

 

[Kenom]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

a wiper contact is essentially a circular layer of copper that comes into contact with a "wiper" but in this instance you would need 1 circle for each led you want to control, and one ground. So if you have 4 led's you would need 5 circles and a wiper that is coming in contact with each as it spins. This completes your electrical connection as it spins. You've seen the electrical connection to a motor as it spins it breaks connection with one, and goes to the next until it spins on to the next.. etc...

 

[joebone]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

would a board and wireless remote be easier?

or would the wiper be easier?

 

[FireMyLaser]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

Here's an example wiper contacts in one of my projects. The rings are of course isolated from the drive shaft. The wires goes up inside the hollow drive shaft.

 

[laserguys]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

would a board and wireless remote be easier?

or would the wiper be easier?

I believe the wireless approach would be more reliable.
You could then send (wirelessly) what you wanted the
LEDs to do and only the number of MCU I/O pins available
and size of battery would limit you to the number of LEDs
you use. IMO.

 

[joebone]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

ooooo ....im seeing the wiper in a hole new world now..


if i make the drive shaft a weee bit longer and very carefully make very small versions of your wiper with plastic washers inbetween them.........ohhhhhhh man i can see it... then no board needed.  just circuts...lots of them. 16

but the wireless is a great option except my electronic ability is very low. ive only started with lights just recently. usually only music. and ive only done music as a hobby lol. so if i get enough insight on this i might could do it.... but i bet i could go sit down and grind out these wiper things in 3 days...with a little lithium grease and a housing i bet it would be pretty legit. it might just work.


i would have to use a copper pipe(or some other very light pipe, or maybe a piece of wood i dremel out) as my blade and led host. i could cut the back half off of it to make the installation of the wires and lights easier then just run a hole shit tone of wires to and from the pipe all the way to the booth.


NICE

 

[Benm]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

[quote author=Benm link=1219352929/0#1 date=1219361139]I suggest you google for "propeller clock" - i think that's sort of what you want but i'm not entirely sure from your diagram.

i can see how you would think that..

imagin an airplane prop with LEDs all the way across.  i want to be able to control each one individually.  kinda like those fireworks taht you nail to a tree that spin that make an illusion of a complete circle.[/quote]

Google it more thoroughly, that is exactly what the propellor clock does: the spinning part is the row of leds, as well as the electronics driving them (useually a microcontroller with some small parts). If its a clock or message display, what to display can be pre-programmed.

If you need to alter the display while it is spinning, you need some means of sending it to the spinning board. Contactless options would include ifrared or possibly RF.

For the power supply, the spinning board is often powerd by one wiper contact, the acual mechanical mount completing the circuit. Alternatively, it can be powered by a contactless air transformer. This works the same way your electric toothbrush does, but is hard to construct if you need a good amount of power.

 

[joebone]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

i found it....

how hard is it to put the board together and program it...to not tell time lol

potentially if i get this to work i could have waaay cooler designs on the wheel cause i could switch between them all much faster.

has anyone made one of these things before?

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

You can use the TI 5940 LED driver to control 16 or more LEDs at once. It's serially controlled, so all you'd need are connections for the power, ground, clock, PWM, reset and data-in ports. Yeah, there are six, but it's better than 16, and 16 is all you need for as many LEDs as you want to control (with 12-bit grayscale dimming).

You'll need to interface them with a microcontroller or something like that, but it'd give you full control over it.

 

[joebone]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

You can use the TI 5940 LED driver to control 16 or more LEDs at once.  It's serially controlled, so all you'd need are connections for the power, ground, clock, PWM, reset and data-in ports.  Yeah, there are six, but it's better than 16, and 16 is all you need for as many LEDs as you want to control (with 12-bit grayscale dimming).

You'll need to interface them with a microcontroller or something like that, but it'd give you full control over it.

awsome
this is my first time doin all of this so if you will please
what is:
    clock
    PWM
    reset
    data-in

also can you link me a microcontroller or something you would use

im sure those are dumb questioins but ive never been exposed to this type of thing before thanks for your help!!

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

It's a good chance for you to learn them. Grab the datasheet from the site I posted and it'll tell you what the pins and stuff do, and what to rig up. You'll get a basic description of the Clock and other pins, but you can look up those terms on the web as well. For a microcontroller, try using an Arduino board.

Here's some stuff that someone has done with that Arduino and the TI 5940, including some code:

http://pixelriot.com/pmatp/node/15

You can't expect us to build everything for you or find all the sources, so check around.

 

[joebone]

Re: a chance for all you electronics wizzkids to s

You can't expect us to build everything for you or find all the sources, so check around.[/quote]

lol oke doke just getting what i can. im learning as fsat as i can here. the first time i ever even thought about doin anything like this was the day i became a member of this site.