Thread: need help with new project

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How can i make the multi pumpkin sing. meaning making the light bulb flash to the voice in music??

That's the easy part. =)

Basically you just use a light organ.


Same type used to transfer sound to light for LIghtning Boxes.

Doc provided a simple circuit that can control a motor to move to sound. I expect you could use to vary intensity on lights. See attached. Will not work with LED's. The voltage output varies based on the amplitude of sound. Doc used it by blowing into a mike to record mouth movement on one side of a stereo track the other track he had his sound effect. At least I think that is how he described it. In your situation you would connect preamped music into the input marked speaker. A variable resistor in the circuit might allow you to adjust the intensity of the light range.

Spinman

see attached

YouTube - Computer Animated Halloween Pumpkins Sing Headless Horseman

This is what i want to do but with my choice of song.

Out of my league. I am newbie and just beginning to learn.

From what I have read I suspect that there is VSA and DMX involved in this. Again I am newbie so I am just guessing.

Spinman

that is done using a Kit74 most likely you can find these online pretty cheap, you hook it up to your computer and it will run 8 electronic anything. then use brookshire VSA to run the board .

Or a light-o-rama DC (CMB-16D) card, LED's, and a power source. The light-o-rama solution would allow you to run 16 individual light channels with as many songs as you wish to program. The LOR product allows fade in, fade out, half intensity, shimmer, random flashing, on, and off control to each channel individually with individually controlled durations. Plus, if you get ambitious, you could enhance the rest of your area with additional lighting effects, expanding to hundreds of channels run on just one computer.

By carefully watching this video, it looks like the author used 15 channels of lights. The bottom row seems to have two channels in each skull, one red and one white. He's used on, off, fade up, fade down, and half intensity controls. If he's using an LOR controller, he's also using random. I don't think you'd be able to do any of the fades or half intensities with a kit-74, and there are a lot more than 8 channels here...

Craig

Originally Posted by SirWild

that is done using a Kit74 most likely you can find these online pretty cheap, you hook it up to your computer and it will run 8 electronic anything. then use brookshire VSA to run the board .

Kit74 is an 8 relay device connected to a computer printer port. The video zooyorkag posted had some dimming and fading of the lights besides just turning them on and off to the music. The Kit74 would not be able to do that, just On/Off control of the lighting. I think for the fading effects you would need DMX controllers or something that can fade the lights.

Another product that might work for this type of project is LightShowMaster and Insteon lamp modules.

The Pod

how do i pass the codes from my computer into the DC (CMB-16D) card. Also i would have to strip the wire form the pumpkin lights into the DC card. right and then strip another wire from an outlet into the same card? i kinda getting it. also would the DC card be able to run by itself or would it need to just be hooked up to a outlet and the computer or just an outlet?

The card has an input for the DC voltage you want to pass (i.e., the switched voltage). You'd connect, 3v or 4.5v or 5v to that. Then, you'd connect up either a 9v or 12v power supply to the card itself. I'd recommend doing multiple LED's in series inside each pumpkin with a small dropping resistor, and connecting it up to the 5v from a computer power supply. You can then grab the 12v from the same supply to run the card. If you're close to the computer running the show, you can extend a hard drive power connector cable out of the computer case, to acquire those voltages. In this case, you'd run the connector to the card, strip back the 4 wires, and connect the 12v (yellow and black) to the card's control power input and the 5v (red and black) to the card's switched power input.

From the computer, you'd hook the rs485 adapter up (included with the LOR software package), and then run a telephone wire (or cat 5 ethernet cable) to the card. You'll then need to run a 2 wire connection from the card to the LED set in each pumpkin (times the number of pumpkins. i.e., 10 pumpkins = 10 2 wire connections).

To make the card run with audio, you need to keep it connected to the computer. There is a way to run it stand alone (no computer) without audio sync, or with external audio (unsync'd), but I don't think that's viable for this application. The application running on the PC is very low bandwidth. I run 160 channels at Christmas, controlling 22K lights, on a 600mhz PIII and it's just loafing.

LOR also offers an AC switched card, unfortunatetly more money, which would allow you to use c7 lamps instead of LEDs. It's easier to wire, and, more importantly, would allow you to run 16 110v AC devices. You'd be able to run spot lights, light strings, or other props with it. Basically, if it's 110v, you just plug it in. And, the card can be purchased in any number of configurations (parts to assemble, assembled, assembled with a kit to put it in a case, assembled in a plastic case, assembled in a metal case, assembled in a metal case with an MP3 player to run stand-alone). Here's a link to the DIY kits: DIY Products

LOR has a sale every summer. You can save 15-20% off at that time. Sign up on their web site Light-O-Rama Info to get on the mailing list for the sale.

Craig