P9813

1 Design

I had always intended to add more stars and Mike’s was the trigger to get on with it.  My star is very similar except my is based on 100mm sections of RGB strips.
The 3D aspect of the star come from the fact the small stars sit proud of the larger stars. Mikes’ graphic display this well.

Mikeh65's Star

 2 Dimensions

the pointer lengths are: 100, 200, 300 & 400 mm.
Material used, 10×3 mm Rydal bar.
I cut the steel at an angle of 108 degree using 300mm bolt cutters.

Rydal Cutting deminsions

Makes for a simple quick cut and unfortunately with some share edges.  The finished star needs a quick touch up with the angle grinder after they are welded.

My cutting list for a single display item is are follows:

3 length of 10×3 x 4000 rydal is required per star.  At just under a kilogram per length, I hope to get the complete metal work to be less than 3.5kg.

 3 Steel Construction

I created a simple jig to speed up the welding of the pointers together.  See the gallery below.  I ended up joining the stars with 3.2 mm Φ wire.

 4 LED Strip

For this display Item I am using LED 5050 RGB Strip.  the strip can be cut into segments of 100mm.  Each Star will require a total of 10 metre.  It all starts to add up!!!

To be continued . . . . . . …

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Decided it will be best to utilise a 1RU rack case.

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I still have way too many RGB Kittys made up so I decided to create a new shield for the kitty to increase the current drive.

The design has the following feature:

• DMX in / out on opposite sides on the board – the board in used inline so as to speak
• DMX start address via Push button on start up – no risk of loosing pesky link packs
• smallish form factor
• Power entry either separate screw terminals or Cat 5 cable
• Operating voltage – 11 to 13 volts
• High Output current – approximately 1.5A per channel ( to be verified)

So how much strip can this controller drive?
Typical RGB strip is 5 meters long and has 150 LEDs. The 150 LEDs are broken down to 3 LED segments. Each segment is set for If = 20mA ( assumed worse case). This means 5 meters of strip will consume 50 x 20mA = 1 Amp per colour. These controllers will be good for 5 to 7metres of 150LED RGB Strip.

This Project details the end result.

Single DMX to RGB Strip Controllers

by Matthew Edwards – 27/10/2011

As I added 3 universes this year I needed a way to create new profile outside of Vixen.  This How To details how I created the profile and then edited it using information I had in excel spread sheets about the channels and my display layout.

Tools needed:

• Vixen 2.5
• Excel 2003 to 2010  (I didn’t succeed in using Open Office for this task)
• NotePad++ ( a free down load)

Procedure

Step 1 – create the profile in Vixen with het correct number of channels and the Output Plugins

Vixen Profile

Step 2 – Open the profile with Notepad++.  Change the language to XML

You will notice the channel data is defined between <ChannelObjects> and </ChannelObjects>

Vixen Profile XML

Select ALL of the lines between <ChannelObjects> and </ChannelObjects> and copy to the clipboard ( Ctrl C)

Step 3 – Open Excel and paste the lines in to column A

Channel Objects imported into Excel

Now it is time to break all the channel data into manageable chunks.

Select the Text to Columns button.

Converting Channel Objects to editable data

Step 4 – Edit the Channel names and colours to suit your display.

I have all my channel data in OO spread sheets, so it is a simple matter of copying & paste from one to the other.

Edit the profile to suit your display

You could delete column A, but I found it useful to refer back to.  At the very least you can hide the column if the page looks too busy.

Step 5 – Recreate the Channel Data objects

Basically we need to add in all the ‘ ” ’ marks we removed to create the columns and concatenate the columns into a single ASCII string.

Re-constructing the Channel Objects

Step 6 – Copy and paste the final string back into the profile to overwrite the existing data.

I liked the idea concept, so started to plan my version.  I decided not to build a cross with a longer lower main axis, but rather stick with equal length arms.  Bevo didn’t give too much away on how to construct them either but hey it can’t be too hard, especially if I MIG the frame together.  I wanted to place them in front of two largish windows at the front of our house on the top floor.  It was at this point I asked my wife for her thoughts and her immediate comment was, “how are you intending to store them?”  Ouch- How does she do that?

So a welded frame is out of the question as storing largish items is some what challenging here.  I needed to come up with a version that can easily be broken down for storage.  It was time to go to Bunning’s and hunt for Ideas.

The following How-To is what I came up with.  For those that better relate to pictures, you will find a photo gallery details most of the construction.

1. Dimensions

The LED strips I intended to use were similar to Bevo’s 30 LED per meter RGB Strip.  I had previous purchased some non water proof version to play with and wanted to use it for this display item.  The strip is 5m long, and it doesn’t take a lot of rocket science to work out if I want to use a single strip for each spinner, I will need to cut them into 600mm lengths.  As is turned out a couple of sections were damaged, so I had to settle for 500mm lengths of strip.  The spinner would still be 1100 mm diameter and very viewable.

2 Design

The design is quiet simple, all that is needed is 8 equally spaced lengths of tube radiating out from a hub.  I choose to make the whole thing out of PVC.  The radial ate 20mm grey conduit, the hub is an end cap for Storm water pipe from the plumbing section.  As I wanted to be able to remove the radial, decided the best way would to be able to unscrew them from the hub.  I picked up some 20mm  Conduit connectors and lock nuts as well as some 3/16 x 38mm roofing screws.

 3.1 Construction – Prototype 1

The first prototype used a 100mm PVC end cap with 20mm holes drilled in the lip to take the conduit connectors.  The end cap side was barely long enough for the 20mm holes, so I had to mill slots in the flat front to take the nuts.
This prototype proved very successful, I thought I had the item completed and started to determine the controller type and placement.  Quite often I stick the controller in an ABS box that can either be hidden out of sight or is mounted as part of the display.  What ever I decided, the wiring of 8 RGB channels represented a lot of wires and connectors.

3.2 Construction – Prototype 2

After a sumptuous Sunday roast lunch, resting easy in a comfy chair,  I thought how cool it would be to have the controller inside the hub.  After my Sunday duties, with my 8Ch RGB controller in hand, it was off to Bunnings again, before they closed for the night!

It turns out the 150mm PVC end cap is a lot stronger than the 100mm one, and will enable the controller to be mounted inside the cap.  The downside is the RGB strips are being pushed further out from the middle.
having drilled the first 150mm hub, I got to say I really like this one better. the material is about 4.5mm thick and extremely rigid. The controller is a very snug fit, with plenty of room for the twin RJ45 and a DC inlet connector between radials.

At last a test video to show some of the capabilty.

One final comment: these spinners are designed to break down for storage.  I estimate the storage area for two units will 100 x 200 x 600mm, which is way cool.

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• On Wednesday night Rose announced she wanted to go as on Quora of Tron.
• That night I found a close seller of Blue EL wire.
• On Thursday Morning, the Wife headed out and picked up 2x 3m battery operated EL wire kits.
• I have a spare 80mm LED ring light
• As technical director of this clan must task was complete. The wife and eldest daughter took over from there.
• On Friday Night Rose headed off to her party.

Dc Power Distribution Panel

2.1mm DC power connector

The panel is configured as 2 separate circuits and allows 2.1mm DC Barrel type connectors to be soldered directly on the PCB.

This is another attempt.

Some time late last year, I purchased some tomato trellis’ for the wife’s herb garden. At the time I thought, ” I am going to have to buy some of them for me too”

I also scored what I think is a half decent price on some waterproof RGB Strips – 40m for AUD120 delivered.

Cost estimation now sits at:
tomato trellis – $11
2.5m LED Strip – $15
3 or 4 Ch DMX DC Controller – $6 to $20
ACL strobe – ~ $5 (I think ) maybe.

An Open Canvas Tomato Trellis

RGB strip cable tied to trellis

Last night I hacked one together and am happy with the results.  The LEDs are mounted on a single side of the strips and thus are very directional.  However there is a pleasant glow on the back side of the strips also.

Next the Controller to be added. followed by the Strobes.  Two Choices come to mind:  The MIC 3ch specials would be more than adequate for the Strips.

MIC 3ch DMX

OR my own 4ch DMX controller allowing Some Strobes to be added inside the Tree.

Top View of Semi populated Controller

Not knowing anything at all about PIC, it was then I decided to make an AVR equivalent unit wit ha couple of variations.  These shots are the finished products. There are a couple of options for the LEDs, a single 4 pin Common Anode RGB LED or 3 separate LEDs.  the whole unit runs of 5Volts.  the LED current are limited to about 20mA each, as per the AVR AtTiny2313 specification.

The RGB Kitty Schematic is available for reuse.

By shorting X3, the controller goes into Address mode and sets the DMX Start Address to the DMX Values of (Ch1 + Ch2).

Panel of 10 Kittys - Front

Panel of 10 Kittys - Rear

Why Kitty?  When designing these I always wanted them to be more than pixel sources, as Pixel conjures up images of small point sources of light.  I wanted Ping-Pong ball sources of diffused light.  As I was nearing competition of the circuit design, my cat’s eyes caught my attention.  ( I know I am hopeless cat person) Thus Kitty Eyes became the project name.  that eventually was shortened to RGB Kittys

For Sale.

I have about 100 (10x panels) Version 1 boards left from the first run.  These are available for sale.

Version 2

Version 2 in planning phase.

I intend to make the following changes:

• Add a 78l05 voltage regulator ( probably a SOT-223 case as they appear to be the best priced units currently
• Replace X3 wit ha SMD switch, AND add a track to pin5 of X1 &X2.
• Change X1&X2 spacing to 0.1′ spacing
• Reduce the size significantly and rationalise the SMD component positioning