rlilly
New member
My sentiments, completely!
Prop 128 v2 Light Controller
- Thread starter gmbartlett
- Start date
My sentiments, completely!
gmbartlett
New member
I am actually in the market for a DMX wireless system. BUT!! This is just as good.
Ben
rlilly
New member
Greg supplied me with a Prop 128 main board and daughter board late last year. I got around to building them a couple of weeks ago.
Man that wireless is cool!
The biggest challange was getting that SMD part done, not that it ended up being hard, it's that I'd never done it before. I didn't use any special paste flux or small diameter solder. I put a weight on it to hold it aligned on the pads, then took regular solder and a chisel tip iron and ran a bead bridging the 8 pads on one side of the part. I removed the weight and did the same to the other side. I then used solder wick to remove the bridges. There was one pin that wasn't making good contact, but it was pin 16 on the end, so it was easy to touch up. There are three SMD parts for both the Prop and Helix boards. I just have one daughter board, so only one part to do.
The Xbee Pro comes setup for 9600 baud, so I needed to reconfigure to 57k baud both radios using the configuration tool that Greg put me onto here. Greg told me that he plans to eventually have the software set up to configure the radios rate automatically.
I'm going to run the Prop in mode 2 only, so I left out the several pieces of the board that allows it to run stand alone.
After testing the Prop and daughter, I installed them in a YBS enclosure along with 52 SSRs. I plan to use it for the Mega Tree this year. There's room in the box to house 96 SSR, so one day....
Here are some pics:
YBS enclosure
Open enclosure
Prop Main Board
Prop Daughter Board
Bank of 32 SSRs
Banks 2, 3 and neutral bus
The Helix will have several improvements over the Prop, but I'll leave that unveiling for Greg.
Man that wireless is cool!
The biggest challange was getting that SMD part done, not that it ended up being hard, it's that I'd never done it before. I didn't use any special paste flux or small diameter solder. I put a weight on it to hold it aligned on the pads, then took regular solder and a chisel tip iron and ran a bead bridging the 8 pads on one side of the part. I removed the weight and did the same to the other side. I then used solder wick to remove the bridges. There was one pin that wasn't making good contact, but it was pin 16 on the end, so it was easy to touch up. There are three SMD parts for both the Prop and Helix boards. I just have one daughter board, so only one part to do.
The Xbee Pro comes setup for 9600 baud, so I needed to reconfigure to 57k baud both radios using the configuration tool that Greg put me onto here. Greg told me that he plans to eventually have the software set up to configure the radios rate automatically.
I'm going to run the Prop in mode 2 only, so I left out the several pieces of the board that allows it to run stand alone.
After testing the Prop and daughter, I installed them in a YBS enclosure along with 52 SSRs. I plan to use it for the Mega Tree this year. There's room in the box to house 96 SSR, so one day....
Here are some pics:
YBS enclosure
Open enclosure
Prop Main Board
Prop Daughter Board
Bank of 32 SSRs
Banks 2, 3 and neutral bus
The Helix will have several improvements over the Prop, but I'll leave that unveiling for Greg.
ukewarrior
New member
Bob,
Which enclosure is that?
Which enclosure is that?
rlilly
New member
gmbartlett
New member
The Helix, the upgraded Prop 128 v2, is ready for release to the group. I've opened a Group Buy post at: http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?p=65139#post65139.