Roof sign

[pixeldigger]

Has anyone considered driving optos/triacs instead of LEDs and putting whole light strings in a grid on the roof?

would this work???

[Greg in Canby]

Yep, I've been pondering just such a thing. Not only to make text, but also experiment with a "snow-shimmering" type effect.

I need to learn a ton more about the whole idea, a ton more about LEDTricks and work a ton more overtime!

Let us know how your works out.

Greg in Oregon

[RJ]

Funny! thats how the ledtriks started out. I was going to use strings of lights solder together in a grid. In pratical application it did work as well as I thought it would so I dropped the idea. I was going to put it up on my roof.

[pixeldigger]

My sister in law is already calling me Danny DeVito, so I figured truning the roff into a Marquis would be appropriate. :-)
... so

just how bad was it?
impractical scale wise, or just didn't look like you wanted??

[Wombat]

I toyed with just this idea about 3 years ago. I actually spent about 2 weeks making a 72 X 8 Matrix of bud lights and then having to go back over it and add Diodes to each Light as each one bled into the ajacent globes. This was a huge feat but then had to abandon the project as I could not get the drivers to drive the display correctly. I used at the time 595's for both the rows (into PNP drivers) and similiar to the olsen output drivers. I had limited success. I Will eventually find a use for the matrix but it is just sitting there for the moment as an uncompleted project.

Was thinking of using it as the Tune to 98.5FM sign
Wombat

[acewingman]

Wow, I was drawing this up on paper last night...The Ledtriks could control the SSRs instead of the LEDs and walla roof covered with lights that can do just about anything...Danny Devito style, well, almost.

[acewingman]

I toyed with just this idea about 3 years ago. I actually spent about 2 weeks making a 72 X 8 Matrix of bud lights and then having to go back over it and add Diodes to each Light as each one bled into the ajacent globes. This was a huge feat but then had to abandon the project as I could not get the drivers to drive the display correctly. I used at the time 595's for both the rows (into PNP drivers) and similiar to the olsen output drivers. I had limited success. I Will eventually find a use for the matrix but it is just sitting there for the moment as an uncompleted project.

Was thinking of using it as the Tune to 98.5FM sign
Wombat

Now that we have LEDTRIKS and the plug-in for Vixen, this should be doable.

[Ronp]

Im going to have to build one.
just take the ledtriks and use what 3inch spacing

4 1/2 ft x12 ft panels

[biffklg]

Wow, I was drawing this up on paper last night...The Ledtriks could control the SSRs instead of the LEDs and walla roof covered with lights that can do just about anything...Danny Devito style, well, almost.

THATS A LOT OF SSRS!
LedTriks has what 768 leds? You would have to have an ssr for each pixel (light)!

[acewingman]

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe I would only need 16 channels vertical (anodes) X 48 channels horizontal (cathodes) for a total of 64 channels. That's 16 Coop SSR boards.

Signals
Connect the outputs from Vixen to the inputs on the SSRs which control the power to the lights. Of course the 16 vertical signals would have to be inverted with three SN7404 chips.

Power
With a full wave rectifier to keep the current flowing the right direction and some well placed diodes to isolate the lights, I should be able to create a 32" X 96" display by placing the lights 2 inches apart.

[PajdaProductions]

I was thinking about this idea for the longest time too!
Maybe there is enough interest that we all could start brainstorming for an actual project of its own?

[P. Short]

The scheme that acewingman is proposing would work if the lights turned on and off in micro-seconds (like LEDs), rather than large fractions of a second. And it would take a lot of 'well placed diodes', like 768, one per lamp.

--

Phil

[acewingman]

The scheme that acewingman is proposing would work if the lights turned on and off in micro-seconds (like LEDs), rather than large fractions of a second. And it would take a lot of 'well placed diodes', like 768, one per lamp.

--

PhilDon't get me wrong, this is not a project I am working on or considering starting. This thing would be an eye sore.

[barrynash17]

[quote="pixeldigger"]My sister in law is already calling me Danny DeVito,


All my friends call me the same, and I am mild. LOL

[djulien]

Did anyone do this? I'm kinda thinking about something along those lines for next year, but as a pixel curtain rather than roof sign. RGB would be nice, but monochrome would be minimally acceptible.

I used a bridge and diodes with 120VAC SSRs in a grid successfully this year, so I know the basic grid architecture will work okay.

I read that incandescent bulbs take ~ 40 msec to turn on, so if the refresh rate were slowed down would that make it workable? I'm also thinking of adding either phosphorescent paint or a capacitor to the bulbs so they will glow longer, to help compensate for the short on-times needed due to the row/column addressing.

Is this worth trying, or did anybody come up with or see examples of a better solution? I've read over some of the pixel threads, and I don't see that there's really an advantage there (maybe I misunderstood it).

thanks

don