BrianPeek.com

I received this question as an anonymous comment and figured I'd answer it here:

"Why didn't you use one 0/16/16 PhidgetInterfaceKit board instead of two 0/0/4? It would have saved $20 and given room to expand into twice as many channels than the current 8 you have."

The specs of the 0/16/16 board state that the outputs can only sink 30 volts DC at 2 amps.  Since we are passing voltage that is a) AC and b) 120 volts in the US (even more in many countries outside the US), this board does not meet the need.

I did have plans on building a version of the hardware using this board and solid-state relays, however the cost per channel wound up being pretty close to the same as that of the 0/0/4 interface kit.  I may revisit this at some point in the future, however.

I have already edited the code to work with the 64LED card. I dont have any other cards to play with. But I wanted to play with this. I am looking at adding fadding to the code. and scrolling durring playback.

 

Leroy

Great!  Any chance of passing the code along so that I can incorporate it into the main build for distribution?

sure, just let me clean it up a bit. this is my first crack at c# and I have a lot of troubleshooting mess in there.

Whenever you're ready, you should be able to post it here or send me an email and I can provide a place to send it.

Thanks!

I could say I would certainly be interested myself in seeing the 0/16/16 setup more from a control setup standpoint as well as for the extra channels. Even if the same cost roughly it should theoretically take a lot less space over 4 boards with 4 male and 16 female power lines running everywhere. The added benefit being that with dual 16 boards I could control 32 channels of light which is right about what I am picturing for the setup I was looking at (also considering LED lights [including possible led spotlights] over standard incan. for a larger display of lighting on the same power).

If I understood electronics better I would play with it myself, but the initial article is what inspired me to even try playing with it to begin (only ever wired outdoor park style lamps to run on 120v).

I likely won't have the time to revisit the 0/16/16 setup for a while, but here's a brief blurb about what it entails...

You would use the 0/16/16 board combined with  up to 16 solid state or mechanical relays.  Relays open and close based on applying a small voltage to them.  I would recommend using a relay that would close based on a 9V signal so you could use a standard 9V battery to drive them.

The circuit would look like this:

battery + ---------- relay side 2 --O O-- relay side 1 ---------------|
        - ---- 0/16/16 common ground --O  O-- 0/16/16 digital output -|

So, the when the digital output on the 0/16/16 is closed, the circuit between the two sides of the relay is closed, thus firing the relay.

The high-voltage side of the relay would be wired much like the existing project.  Remove the male end from an extension cord and wire the resulting two wires to each side of the high-voltage side of the relay.

Now you should be able to control 16 relays tied to the Phidget board on one side and 16 extension cords on the other.

I haven't personally tested this as of yet, so I'm unsure of the number of batteries that may be required.  One 9V battery should be enough to drive all of the relays, but if they were all closed at the same time for a long period of time, it may drain the battery quickly.  It may be wise to wire one battery for every 4 relays (or maybe even 8).

I hope that answers the question quickly.  If/when I get time to revisit this (I'm off to new articles for C4F for the moment!) I will update the original article with further details.

If anyone has a specific question on the above, please let me know!

vashadow:

I have already edited the code to work with the 64LED card. I dont have any other cards to play with. But I wanted to play with this. I am looking at adding fadding to the code. and scrolling durring playback.

 

Leroy

Does the 64 power the LEDs itself?  or does it just break a small amperage circuit (so a battery would be needed)?

 

If it does power the LEDs, how much power does it output? 

vashadow

I just recieved 64LED kit, wondering if your code is available. Thanks.

 Cheers, Mike

vashadow:

I have already edited the code to work with the 64LED card. I dont have any other cards to play with. But I wanted to play with this. I am looking at adding fadding to the code. and scrolling durring playback.

 

Leroy

I would really appreciate if you could share this

Leroy

I have played with the kit off and on but never got so good to edit the software to work. Would you be willing to share your conversion. Thanks.

 Cheers, Michael