Electronics Hardware

This is the page to contribute content about the electronics hardware you use to run your display. If it electronic components or solder then it belongs here. Anything from relays and controllers to pic programmers and power supplies.

Links

Hardware Design Guidelines A DIYC community standardization

Co-Op Boards and Assembly Instructions

Renard Main Page Simple PIC-Based Light Dimmer Controller for use with Vixen

Solid State Relays

DMX to Grinch/595 convertor: How to make your Grinch speak DMX

All In One Tester : A single unit for testing controllers, cables, and SSR's

Olsen 595 : How to make an Olsen 595 controller at home

DMX ROBO Spot Light: How to build a Robotic Full Color Spotlight.

Overview of DIY Hardware Approaches That Work With Vixen

This section provides information about Do-It-Yourself (DIY) hardware that works with the Vixen software program. This is a Windows (.NET2) program that runs on a PC, and is used to create and run light shows that may be synchronized to music. Here is a brief list of the DIY approaches that you can take that will work with Vixen.

Parallel Port Approaches

These controllers only work with parallel ports that are built into the PC (and also older ISA Parallel Port cards). People have had difficulty getting them to work with PCI Parallel Port cards or USB-Parallel converters.

SSR Direct Attach

If you need 12 or fewer channels, you can just buy or build SSRs and connect them to the parallel port on your PC, and use them to turn 110VAC light strings (or just plain lamps) on and off (no dimming). From time to time there are coop buys of SSR boards and/or parts, so reduce your expense.

Hill320

This is a controller originally designed by Hill Robertson http://computerchristmas.com to allow up to 320 channels to be controlled by a PC, and requires an external power supply and SSRs. There isn't any coop board for this design at the moment. It is a more complicated design, and it is not currently recommended for newbies.

Olsen 595/Grinch

This is a popular controller based on an approach first popularized on the http://computerchristmas.com and/or http://planetchristmas.com forums by Peter Olsen. In its first incarnation it used 8-bit 74HC595 logic chips, often with external buffers, while a later design (Grinch) popularized by Robert Jordan uses 16-bit chips specialized for this use. There are coop boards available for both of these designs. These coop boards need external power supplies, and work with external (coop) SSR boards to control AC lighting.

There are some variations of this approach that support dimming, but they are not as popular and there aren't any coop boards available.

The Grinch board is a good choice if you need more than 12 channels but want a board that is simple to build. It doesn't use very many parts, and is easy to assemble.

Ledtriks

This is a controller to control low-voltage LED panels, designed by Robert Jordan. These panels are typically 16 LEDs high by 48 LEDs wide, for a total of 768 LEDs. Vixen can control up to four panels through one parallel port, and can even display text.

Serial Port Approaches

There are several controller designs that can be interfaced through the serial port (including USB-Serial converters). These designs support dimming, and are microcontroller-based designs (exclusively PICs so far). These designs are typically more complex than the Parallel Port designs

Firegod

This is a modular system that supports 32 to 128 channels per serial port, in increments of 32 channels, with 100 levels of dimming (using pulse width modulation - PWM). It consists of a host controller module and one to four field modules. The SSRs are not included on these boards, and must be provided separately. The interface to this system is RS485, so a USB-RS485 (or RS232-RS485) converters are required. This system is available on a coop basis from time to time, with the kits including the boards, the parts, and pre-programmed microcontroller chips (PICs). This board is intermediate in complexity to build.

Renard

This is another modular system that supports a varying number of channels, depending on baud rate selection. It supports 256 levels of dimming, and can be configured with or with PWM, or for use in DC applications. There are several coop boards available for this system with varying capabilities. It can be a fairly complex system because there are so many options. More information is available at the link listed above.

rgbLED

TBA

Pictures of Various Coop Boards (mostly assembled)

SSR (solid state relay)

595 Coop Board

Grinch (needs bypass caps)

Renard (by FKostyun: 24 ports with on-board power supply and SSRs)