cnicholls
12-06-2011, 07:17 PM
Hello All,
Im a newbie and a novice to light sequencing, like most of you I wanted to do a moderate Christmas display at my personal residents. My goal is to be better than anyone on my street, not so much the talk of the city. I dont have thousands of strands of lights... I just want a tasteful, visually pleasing display for an acceptable budget. For me, I think a 48 channel on/off controller using 110 volt rope/incandescent lights will be a good starting point.
Being a software developer I wasnt sure where to start. I have been wandering the web looking for the best way to accomplish this task. I had some experience with interfacing with a Phidget devices and also had a Arduino laying here and thought hey that might work.... Next I thought, i need a .net object to manage the timeline, and that gets complicated... So anyway I ran across Vixen, and why reinvent the wheel right? I read the article about using the generic serial plugin to send commands to Arduino, however it looks like the fellow pioneering that effort gave up and moved to a different micro control because of performance issues.
So my question is...
Is there another plugin that sends native (FIRMATA) commands to Arduino without messing with Arduino Codebase ?
I have started writing my own plugin using the maloneylights youtube video series for ref, an awesome tutorial if your so inclined. I have written my plug-in for vb.net for my preferences. However - I have made some shortcuts based on my configuration instead of writing it for everyone to use. Is this something that others would have interest in?
My current setup is 16 channels I spent around $100 and its scalable to 48 channels for an additional $100 ($4.16 per channel). Money isnt the real issue- However I love to see how far I can strech my dollar.
Arduino Mega 2560 - $50 - Amazon
Off the shelf relay modules available in 2/4/8 or 16 channels. I am using 2 banks of 8 that are on - Amazon $25
Is there another way of approaching this?
I don't want to build a circuit board when there are inexpensive alternatives... And I just dont want to buy a ready-made system.
I want somewhere in the middle...
I want to Do-It-Myself... just not all of it....
Is there another/better way that I have missed?
I was thinking on doing a youtube series on
1.what to buy
2.plugging it all together - no soldering required
3.making vixen talk to hardware. - no programming
Im a newbie and a novice to light sequencing, like most of you I wanted to do a moderate Christmas display at my personal residents. My goal is to be better than anyone on my street, not so much the talk of the city. I dont have thousands of strands of lights... I just want a tasteful, visually pleasing display for an acceptable budget. For me, I think a 48 channel on/off controller using 110 volt rope/incandescent lights will be a good starting point.
Being a software developer I wasnt sure where to start. I have been wandering the web looking for the best way to accomplish this task. I had some experience with interfacing with a Phidget devices and also had a Arduino laying here and thought hey that might work.... Next I thought, i need a .net object to manage the timeline, and that gets complicated... So anyway I ran across Vixen, and why reinvent the wheel right? I read the article about using the generic serial plugin to send commands to Arduino, however it looks like the fellow pioneering that effort gave up and moved to a different micro control because of performance issues.
So my question is...
Is there another plugin that sends native (FIRMATA) commands to Arduino without messing with Arduino Codebase ?
I have started writing my own plugin using the maloneylights youtube video series for ref, an awesome tutorial if your so inclined. I have written my plug-in for vb.net for my preferences. However - I have made some shortcuts based on my configuration instead of writing it for everyone to use. Is this something that others would have interest in?
My current setup is 16 channels I spent around $100 and its scalable to 48 channels for an additional $100 ($4.16 per channel). Money isnt the real issue- However I love to see how far I can strech my dollar.
Arduino Mega 2560 - $50 - Amazon
Off the shelf relay modules available in 2/4/8 or 16 channels. I am using 2 banks of 8 that are on - Amazon $25
Is there another way of approaching this?
I don't want to build a circuit board when there are inexpensive alternatives... And I just dont want to buy a ready-made system.
I want somewhere in the middle...
I want to Do-It-Myself... just not all of it....
Is there another/better way that I have missed?
I was thinking on doing a youtube series on
1.what to buy
2.plugging it all together - no soldering required
3.making vixen talk to hardware. - no programming