Glow with *OUR* Show and MSP430G2553 discussion

[Lorum]

Hi everyone!

I've decided to join the forum, because I've been reading you for a while and now I would like to gather all the info available to make a DMX-IR interface to sync GwtS ears in my shows. I don't know if someone here has already made a project using DMX. The thing is that I know there are people who has already build a DMX-IR interface. I have some basic knowledge of Arduino and DMX. But... One friend has sent to me a picture and a video I would like to share with you. Notice that in the video the GwtS lights can fade in and out, and each pair can be control separately.

1174862_10151524009336653_1806660603_n.jpg

[ac2ev]

After doing a bit of research it appers that it's going to be a little more difficult then I thought to create my own set of ears that will accept GWTS commands. While I can send and receive codes there is no easy method of decoding the code received. It loolks like I'll have to build my own protocol interprator. There are meany examples of code ou there that will accept IR pulses and allow you to work with them. The caveat is they treat the GWTS codes as raw and assign arbitrary codes to the pulses. At this point I see 3 options

1. Get knee deep in th IR and figure out how to get the TX to match the RX as far as Hexidecimal
2. Create a lookup table to convert GWTS codes to RX raw codes
3. Ditch the whole idea and instead make my ears TX only to "take over" other ears around me.

With 1 and 2 I still need to write the code to properly handle the codes.

There is one other option which it to make a hybrid set of ears. I could hijack the LED signal off a real set of ears and feed that into an Arduino to run my own ears. Anybody got a set of ears they want to donate? I would only need the circuit board.

If anyone has some pointers I'd love to hear them. Unfortunaely I don't have an O'scope other labe equipment to help in this.

[rjchu]

That's interesting, I don't think anyone here has tackled independent hat control/ID yet.

Can you share any details about your (or your friend's) controller and how it works?

Thanks,

-joni-

Hi everyone!

I've decided to join the forum, because I've been reading you for a while and now I would like to gather all the info available to make a DMX-IR interface to sync GwtS ears in my shows. I don't know if someone here has already made a project using DMX. The thing is that I know there are people who has already build a DMX-IR interface. I have some basic knowledge of Arduino and DMX. But... One friend has sent to me a picture and a video I would like to share with you. Notice that in the video the GwtS lights can fade in and out, and each pair can be control separately.

1174862_10151524009336653_1806660603_n.jpg

[Lorum]

That's interesting, I don't think anyone here has tackled independent hat control/ID yet.

Can you share any details about your (or your friend's) controller and how it works?

Thanks,

-joni-

The thing is it's not our controller. He just saw the video on someone's Facebook wall and he asked him for some info, but he refused to share it. It seems that is like the programmable logic controller you find in a simple DMX controller board, and my friend told me he read the description of the picture on Facebook and it said it's a DMX interface. So I wrote here in the hope of finding someone who had made something similar.

[Jon Fether]

I posted my tools for capture and playback of GWTS signals with Arduino to my Github account at https://github.com/jfether/EarTools if anyone's curious. Needs an SD card but effective.

[Materdaddy]

I posted my tools for capture and playback of GWTS signals with Arduino to my Github account at https://github.com/jfether/EarTools if anyone's curious. Needs an SD card but effective.

I didn't realize you lived in Corona. A lot of my family grew up there. Small world.

Thanks for sharing your code. After I get through the crunch time of my display this year I hope to play with it some and see if I can get anything else working with the ears.

[rjchu]

Mater,

The revival of this thread has me trying to pick this up again since we'd worked on it last year and had it running with the show/display - although I haven't sequenced ANYTHING for 2014 and am still doing the infrastructure portion of 2014's display build (can you say procrastination? ) I'm having trouble remembering and locating how you'd setup your POC. I'd like to drive an IR LED or array of IR LED's with a RF1_12v but am not sure where and which libraries you used nor how you wired things up? Did you ever hook up directly to an IR LED or did you always use LabRat's IR array from his daughter's dance project? If the later, where the inputs simply power and ground or was there more "smarts" in his array that I'd need to factor into the mix?

I have my original code obviously but I'm trying to go 100% E131/DMX this year so the Renard gateway my code uses won't be of use and I have a fleet of the Komby's waiting to be used here.

Thanks,

-joni-

I didn't realize you lived in Corona. A lot of my family grew up there. Small world.

Thanks for sharing your code. After I get through the crunch time of my display this year I hope to play with it some and see if I can get anything else working with the ears.

[Materdaddy]

I'd like to drive an IR LED or array of IR LED's with a RF1_12v but am not sure where and which libraries you used nor how you wired things up?

I wrote code for Komby that's available in his RFShowControl library, which is what I used. I drove it with a 5V RF1. The code is here:
https://github.com/komby/RFShowContr...RF_In_GwtS_Out
Just grab his latest release with a fresh install of arduino 1.0.5 or 1.0.6 (not the 1.5 series) and install per his directions and everything "should just work" (famous last words, right?):
http://learn.komby.com/wiki/3/how-to-setup-arduino-ide

Did you ever hook up directly to an IR LED or did you always use LabRat's IR array from his daughter's dance project?

My initial testing was directly to a single IR LED from radio shack. That was how I prototyped at my desk, however the angle from the single LED was dismal, and the range was even worse. For "in the field" I've only ever used LabRat's array.

If the later, where the inputs simply power and ground or was there more "smarts" in his array that I'd need to factor into the mix?

The inputs for his board are power, ground, and then a data line. It's basically a transistor circuit much like is on the Ren48LSD. Arduino pins can only handle something like <40mA of current, so basically the board takes the arduino pin to the gate of a transistor to provide much more current to the LEDs with the arduino's signals.

I have my original code obviously but I'm trying to go 100% E131/DMX this year so the Renard gateway my code uses won't be of use and I have a fleet of the Komby's waiting to be used here.

KOMBY!!!! USE IT FOR EVERYTHING!!! JOIN US!!!

Also, the code I wrote was targeted for the RF1. I've had a few people contact me over the year telling me that they changed the pin, or were using a MEGA and they can't get it working. I tweaked the timing for pin 2, which is the "data" pin for RF1s. Also, if you have problems, and a logic analyzer, I was setting pin 3 (one of the side pins of an RF1) as a "marker" to help measure the timing of the 38kHz transmission when I tweaked the delays and loop count.

Maybe something else useful here: http://christmasonquiethills.com/how...with-the-show/

[ac2ev]

Jon Fether posted his ear recording code on github. I grabbed a copy and quickly realized I'd been going about this the hard way. Since we know it's 2400 baud Jon chooses to use the built in serial port. I was using various bit-banging interrupt routines. This adds error into the system. Using the serial port is much easier. I'm going to go down this road and see where it takes me.

[Materdaddy]

That's assuming you have "smart" IR that handles the 38kHz modulation for you, right? It also makes things more difficult to debug by not having serial.

If you're using a Mega or something, there are multiple hardware UARTs that would work for that, so it's no big deal for that.