I have built all of the riser cards, 1 ssr and the main board as well as the sub system boards.
Testing has been promising so far. Updated several settings in Windows system pannel, results are good.
Posted demo video on YOUTUBE.
Hooked up a proto setup on a bread board with 1 ch of the horning dimmer. Found that I have had multiple little issues along the way. Currently working with Phil on the computerchristmas forum to better understand how to troubleshooting the dimming part of the circuit. I am still lacking understanding for the 74HC40103. I really really need some test equipment.
Dear Santa, Please bring me an Ocilloscope for Christmas. I have been good! I promise… Thanks - Matt
Video of Vixen Partal Ramp Down 87% to 37%:
http://www.stemplelabs.com/robotics/wp-pictures/xmas_1ch_dimmer_issues.AVI
It should be a smooth dim down, but it appears random, however at some points it does dim. I think the demo is only bright or less bright, not anything in between.
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I reviewed the Horning Dimming plans a multiple of times to make sure I catpured all of the parts I would need to order. I placed the order at 1am this morning (Nov. 7). This year I am building out 32 dimmable channels for use with Vixen. I am going to build in the ability to hook on extra boards for more dimmers in the future. Scalability is the key here to justify the cost.
At this point I am going for mainboard with riser card design. I will create the main board with everything except the 74HC595 and 74HC40103 chips. This first board will be limited to 32 channels, but the bus will be expanded to another board for 32 more. Since most of the connections are between the two main ICs, having them on cards will I think make it easier to work with. Also I can pull out and replace a card should I fry it some how.
I have not yet figured out how to design a PCB layout that would be good for either the main board or channel card. So I will just use protoboard and ribbon cables for this year. The channel card will have 2 each of the main ICs to provide 2 channels each. They will connect to the bus via a single header. Once I have built a couple I will post pictures.
So far Jameco has been great! My shippment is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. 1 day order and delivery is working out well. I ordered parts for SSR boards and the controller. Plus I picked up a decent bench soldering iron and fume cleaner. Two items I haven’t had before. Given this is one of the largest projects I have taken on I am looking forward to have some nice tools for a change.
I have several spreadsheets with parts and Jameco order numbers to post. So far it seems that I am into this for about $130 so far. Not sure how that compairs to others at this point. Trying to determine what parts I needed took longer then I thought. Had a lot of choice and small design changes here and there made the cost of the order change more then I expected. I still have a lot to learn…
Follow up items:
Picking out the music was harder then I thought. I only have a few christmas CDs to listen too. They were to slow or had lots of singing. I am looking for something with clear changes in the music and several different noticable ’sections’. I ended up buying a song from iTunes. I won’t say what it is for now…
I took several pictures of the house and using Gimp put a filter over it so only show the outline of key areas. Using a tracing table (made from backlight of a 17″ LCD monitor) I created an overlay that had windows, bushes and other features that I want to light. Trying to come up with some kind of pattern while keeping things even is a challenge. I want to make sure that I have enough channels so that it doesn’t look like I am lighting up the same stuff all the time. Hopeing it doesn’t end up just looking randon… Will see.
At this point I have 30 channels. I am going to stop there for this year. Not sure what the buget is and I don’t yet have all the lights. The lights are going to cost most then I think so I need to take this year to ease into it! I am going to build my controller with 32 dimmable channels. The idea will be to build another 32 unit next year or maybe 2 32 units.
I have to draft a plan for parts and figure out how I am going to case this up. I haven’t done any PCB ethching for a long time so there is another challenge.
From the controller to the SSR units I will run each channels via CAT-5. If the SSR unit is only 4 channels it will have a pass through. The SSR box will have jumpers to determine witch of the 8 channels it will single it’s 4 plugs from. This may cut done on extra wires running from the controller… My 32 unit controller will have 4 RJ-45 ports. Remember I am pulling ‘ground’ from the AC Ground connection at the SSR point.
More busy work is required before I can even order parts… Still need to buy lights too. Am I going to make it this year?
The next step is to build a dimming 595 controller. This is a post that I will use for reference: ‘Dimming the Olsen 595‘.
I couldn’t find any parts this weekend, so I will have to order them. It doesn’t seem like for the cost making all channels dimming would be bad. At this point I don’t know what I need as I have not planned the lighting layout.
More homework is required at this point. To keep it simple I should just build a non-dimming system and upgrade next year… But that isn’t much fun.
After reviewing most posts at computerchristmas.com I found that most people were building their system to handle a lot higher loads then standard christmas lights. 3 strings of 100 bulb lights are reported to only use around 1 amp. The bigger and more costly SSR packages are designed for larger loads.
This post ‘ 4-channel SSR … ‘ has a plan for building an SSR using a couple resisters, a triac and optoisolator. Simple design that fits into a standard new work double gang electrical box. For the prototype I pick up parts from the local HSC. I found slighly different parts then what the design called for. I plan to buy the actual parts from Jameco.com.
The picture shows the SSR prototype with 1 channel on the right. The connection from the breadboard (olsen 595 controller hooked to the printer port) is 1 channel from the 74HC595 and a ground. I hacked up a cheap extension cord to provide power and an outlet. This is hooked to a lamp.
The next picture shows the SSR with standard outlets and 4 channels. The RJ-45 connection is hooked to 4 channels on the breadboard simple 595 controller.
I need to work on the circuit layout. In the post from computerchristmas.com a sample of a PCB Board screen is provided. The size is such that it will fit into a standard electrical box. At this point I am not sure if I want to go with 4 channel each or 8. I need to plan out how many cords I want to run outside and how far part each box will be.
Using a standard 8 wire CAT-5 cable 8 channels from the Simple 595 controller can be sent out to each box. The ground will come from the power source for the lights (outlet outside). I would like to create a small package that would fit into a power strip rather then the electrical boxes.
This is a quick demo of my prototype 4-channel SSR being driven by Vixen and the Olsen 595 controller: Xmas lights prototype 1 StempleLABS Demo
Using a breadboard I wired up a 74HC595 IC to control a 10-Bar LED. The LED will show what regisisters (Channels) are on or off. This test only use 1 595 however as many 595 chips can be setup in a serial to process any number of bytes.
My simple 595 controller using 1 74HC595 uses 8 bits of data from the printer parallel port to control 8 channels (regisiters). Using 1 data line from the printer port these bits will pass through the 595’s regisisters then a latch signal (strobe) will single the bit to be transfered to the I/O lines of the ICs. The I/O lines are hooked to the 10-bar LED. The printer port is being driven by the Vixen software package.
In the pictures I am using my Parallax Boe-bot for +5V Vdd.
For details about how to connect the 74HC595 IC to the printer port, review this post: ‘How to build a 1024 channel controller for under $100′.
HARDWARE DESIGN
Using a parallel printer port with a handful of 595 shift registers seems to be the DIY standard. There are lots of posts that outline how this works. This post is for the ‘Olsen 595‘ controller. It outlines how to wire up several 74HC595 ICs to create 8 or more lines of On/Off channels. This example works for at least 1024 channels.
The channel provides a +5v signal to control a relay or any other device capiable of switching high voltages (120v for my system.) Early DIY systems used relays, but these mechanical devices have a very limited lift. A better solution is an SSR (Solid State Relay). DIYers are finding these any where from $1 on up. A new SSR starts around $5 each depending on the rating. I am looking for a different solution.
Because the computer parallel port is used for controlling the 595 chips in real time software is required to drive it. I didn’t understand how the 595 worked so I use the Basic Stamp to control it at first. That was a good way to see the data move through the registers and parallax has some good information about how this works: Basic Stamp 74HC595 application. In the Olsen 595 post he outlined the basic syntax to control the parallel port. Some day I would like to write my own software for this, but someone else has already done an EXECELLENT job of doing it. (I would like to create a PIC driver for the 595s and not use the computer in the future)
SOFTWARE
I am testing with software titled Vixen. It has lots of functionality and a great UI for controlling channels over time with Music. Besides a design GUI it can schedule play back. This is written using the .NET framework and runs on Windows. For testing I have been using an old AMD 850Mhz box with XP. So far the only issue I have had was not using EPP mode on the hardware parallel port. Prior to setting using EPP not all of the bits make it to the correct 595 Registers. I figured this out after testing and reading several random posts about parallel port performance.
My neighborhood block likes to put up displays for Christmas… 2005 was the first year in my house so not much was done for holiday lighting. Some sparkling icicle lights over the garage was it. It wasn’t much.
After seeing several links to various computer controlled light displays (This is the awesome) I knew it would be a great project. Last year at this time I didn’t know much about how serial communications work, nor did I know anything about controlling I/O. Beisdes my OOPic (that I didn’t spend much time with) I hadn’t spent a lot of time learning about basic control. Since getting my BasicStamp Boe-Bot kit, all of that has change.
Web searching I found a kits and products that make light annimation easy. These range in price and have lots of functions. This would be great if I didn’t want to learn anything while doing it… I am looking for a DIY Project that will do the following:
Lots of people have done all of the above so getting started isn’t much of a challenge, figuring out what I want to do with the lights and house is.
There a mutiple DIY / webring sites for lighting displays and controller design. I found my self going to this site the most: computerchristmas.com It has lots of DIY ideas and pictures.
Moving forward I will document what I learn and maybe share some new ideas.