SSC-32 / LED Question

Sure - the SSC-32 supplies 5V and ground to each servo connector (as well as the pulse signal). So if you wanted to drive an LED you could just connect the LED across the +5 and the Ground pins on any of the servo positions with a resister of about 180 - 220 ohms in series with either the + or - side of the LED. Since you have to provide about 5V for the servo motors across the VS1 and/or VS2 connector you could just connect the LED there as well.

Excuse me for bring this up from the dead... but is it possible to switch the LED's on and off with the SSC-32 via the signal wire? Constantly on would work, but being able to activate the lights when the routine is running would be ideal.

As far as I know the SSc-32 only controls servos. What you need is a relay of some sort, but SSC-32 won't do it. If you are using VSA and the SSC-32 board you could add a DMX interface and get another board to handle relays for the led's, but the simplest solution might be the Medusa board. Check out this thread.

http://www.halloweenforum.com/halloween-props/96295-control-skull-rgb-eyes-prop-lighting.html

Edit: I just thought of a way you might do this using VSA but it would require another servo and building a mount with a micro switch. You could program the servo to rotate an arm that activates the lever on a micro switch which then turns on and off your led.

If the leds are for the eyes I use tri colored led from pimpmyanimatronic.com on my props, they also have single led colors and you can control it through vsa. You can program it to mix match, fade in and out, it's real simple to program in the events. See below I had posted it under my thread mad lab props completed.

The SSC-32 manual says that any of the 32 outputs can be used as a "discrete" output, meaning that it can be On (+5VDC) or Off (0VDC). So a LED could be hooked up as stated previously (using a current-limiting resistor.) The only requirement is that the "Discrete Output" serial command be used to accomplish this.

So how do you get VSA to send that on or off signal?

You set that channel as a relay instead of a servo, then it will send either a high (5V) or a low (0V), you can also feed the base a a small transistor through a 1K resistor and power a relay or multiple leds with it. If you use a relay though I would use a flyback diode across the coil to protect the ssc32.