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From Ron:

1) In your article you used 2 0/0/4 boards, for a total of 8 output connections. I've tried counting the individual lights in your video - I believe I see 8 individual light strings: 3 on the tree, 2 on the floor, 1 on the curtains, 1 on the back wall, 1 on the couch. Is that correct?

That is all correct.

2) The way you constructed a single Phidget is: 1 male connection, 4 female connections. So, that 1 phidget plugs into AC power supply, and 4 go out to the light strings?

Yes.

I had a third question, but I think I see the problems with what I was wanting to know: It seems possible to that the two boards could be configured to have 8 outputs, and a single input (male connector). But I think the problem would be (electrical overloads excluded) that the wiring would be too bulky somewhere in the configuration.

You certainly could wire up one extension cord as the power for all, but as you said, the wiring gets even messier and painful.  By keeping it to 1 in and 4 outs per board, you can keep everything neat and separated.

So, how about this question: How long of a USB cable did you use?

I believe they are 6 feet.  It's included with the Phidget board when you purchase it.

This may just be my computer, but when I am running the VB version and click the record button, the box pops up, but when I click start, nothing happens.  I tried it with the C# version and the record feature worked out perfect (except my rythem was a little off). 

Also, how would I go about connecting this over a network or the internet, any ideas?

And last but not least, is there a way to delete or disable channels in a sequence, so I can try using your example with my single board?  I get an error and it trys to close the program if I click play using more than 4 channels.



PS: I use C++ and Visual Basic

rbxslvr:

This may just be my computer, but when I am running the VB version and click the record button, the box pops up, but when I click start, nothing happens.  I tried it with the C# version and the record feature worked out perfect (except my rythem was a little off). 

The event for the button could very well not be hooked up in the VB version.  I try to keep the source code in sync between the projects, but my system is not perfect.  If you're just using the compiled version, stick to the C# .exe for now.

rbxslvr:

Also, how would I go about connecting this over a network or the internet, any ideas?

It's nothing that would be automatic.  You would likely need to setup a socket server/client to transmit the command information from one machine to the other.  You could try remoting or some other type of communication, but I think sockets would be required to maintain the speed required.  Even with sockets, I'm not sure you'd get the 20ms per tick timings required by the software.

rbxslvr:

And last but not least, is there a way to delete or disable channels in a sequence, so I can try using your example with my single board?  I get an error and it trys to close the program if I click play using more than 4 channels.

Yes, this is a bit of a flaw in the current version.  It tries to talk to all 8 channels no matter what.  The easiest way to only have it work with 4 is to open the .seq file in notepad, change the <numChannels> parameter to 4 and remove the lines with <channel number> 4-7 .

Hope that helps!