Christmas in Brewster

I started on the first of my two color arches last night. I got all six channels of white on last night and tested it out. It turns out that wrapping the wires wasn’t what annoyed me the most, it was stopping after each channel to solder on an extension cable. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I had a soldering gun, but all I have is my CSI 2A, so I had to take the arch to my work table each time I needed to solder. The other issue I ran into was that the conduit kept sagging as I added more lights (and weight), and after three or four channels, it was too awkward to turn, so I just kept moving the lights around the conduit. I’m going to stop at the hardware tomorrow and see if there is something relatively cheap to put inside the conduit while I am wrapping it to keep it more rigid.

I started with the first blue channel but between the soldering and the conduit not turning, I gave up after the first one.

I’ll give more details on the arch construction with pictures and (hopefully) video of the arch in action once it is completed.

I spent the rest of tonight getting the PVC attached to the back of the rest of the enclosures and the hot glue in place to seal off the holes. Then I started wiring controller #2. I currently have all the grounds in place and just finished attaching the PCB/heat sink. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have it all wired up tomorrow night.

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I failed to mention that we worked out the details of me going to Light Up Ohio 2009 in Columbus, so I registered last week. I am going to drive down to Columbus the morning of May 16th and drive back after the mini is over. There are several talks I can’t wait to hear about including etching your own PCBs, FM transmitters (wvengineer will be there, it will be neat to meet him because he seems very knowledgeable about transmitters), and information on the portable hole will be provided. In addition BBQ will be served for lunch AND we get a t-shirt, not bad for $20 and the cost of gas to Columbus.

See http://www.lightupohio.com/ for more info.

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Well, I’ve actually gotten quite a but accomplished the last two nights. Last night I got the remaining cords set in their enclosures. I also got the first of the PVC pipes that will be used to hang the enclosure outside attached. The plan is to drive 1/2″ rebar in the ground and slide the 3/4″ PVC that is attached to the enclosure over the rebar in order to keep the enclosure off the ground. The PVC has a cap glued on top to keep it sitting on top of the rebar, but I was worried that over the years, resting it on top of the rebar would start to wear on the cap, so before capping off the PVC, I took a cork from a wine bottle, and cut it in half. I put half the cork in the PVC and capped it off. The cork fit in rather tight, so it will lend some support itself and hopefully will help protect the cap.

I attached the PVC to the enclosures using the conduit mounts provided. After knocking out the… well… knockouts, I shoved a hose clamp in and tightened it down on the PVC. A small warning however, if you decide to go this route, be sure to not tighten it too much. On my test install of the PVC a few days ago, I tightened it too much and you can see where it started pulling the mount away. I think it will be fine, but if I had gone any further, i might be looking for some epoxy to make some repairs. Once attached, I filled in the holes where the hose clamps run through the inside the enclosure with hot glue. Someone on DIYC mentioned that he seals his enclosures with hot glue rather than sillicone because the silicone is corrosive to the electronics (I was going to use silicone). I don’t know if there is any truth to that, but I liked the idea of the hot glue because it would flow into crevices better, and would harden a lot faster. I wish I had used the hot glue rather than Goop on the screws, both for those reasons, and because once the Goop hardened, it seemed to shrink up a bit and I wasn’t too convinced of the seal it left on the screws that come through the enclosure. Just to be sure, I covered all the screw heads with a glob of hot glue. I also put hot glue on the outside where the hose clamp goes into the enclosure… say it with me… just to be safe.

I’ve got two more enclosures to get the PVC mounted to and the hot glue in and then it’s time to start wiring. After I got enclosure #1′s PVC installed and the hot glue on, I went ahead and put the PCB/Heat Sink in and re-wired it since all of the wires in that enclosure were already cut and tinned from the last time, so I once again have 1 complete working Ren24.

I probably could have kept going, but I was too excited about my other toys. The 1000 LEDs that I ordered from eBay arrived today from Hong Kong. These are the LEDs that will be going in the pixels. I wired up three of each color to see if they were going to work out and it appears that indeed they will. The plan is to put each pixel in a 5LB white food container, so I wanted to see how the LEDs diffused with white plastic. The closest I could find was a white plastic cup from Howards Pub, Ocracoke Island, NC. On a side note, if you ever get to Cape Hatteras, NC, make the ferry trip to Ocracoke Island. Eating at Howards is way worth it! Anyhow as you can see from the pics, the LEDs diffused nicely with the cup. They are actually brighter than I expected and that is only with three LEDs of each color. Each pixel will actually have 6 of each color, so I think the 5LB containers should work perfectly. I have pretty good faith that JEC will come through with new Pixel boards, but I’ve decided that if for some reason that falls through (which if it did, I don’t think would be any of his doing), that I want these things so bad, that I’ll lay out my own board (I think I’m capable), and get them printed up myself. I think he’ll come through though!

The last pictures of the set are of the LEDs – straight on. I found some information at Evil Mad Scientist about photographing LEDs, so I wanted to give it a try on the LEDs for the Pixels. They didn’t turn out too bad!

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I’ve made quite a bit of progress that last few nights. I did get the remaining 72 cords stripped. When I counted them I thought I got shorted 2 cords, but apparently I can’t add. That may have been the worst part of this project thus far… stripping those cords. I got 24 cords attached to an enclosure, but the wires haven’t been organized yet.

The .25″ spacers came in today (Mouser Part #561-K8.25), so tonight I got the boards semi-mounted in the heat sinks. I’ve still got all of the screws to put in the triacs, but I’m waiting until I have a chance to test the boards one last time in case I have to take it off the heat sink again. I fully tested one board tonight with DMX firmware. Here’s Phil’s notes on what needs modified to run the DMX firmware. The key thing for me was that the first PIC gets the desired start address for the board, and the remaining PICs get a start address of 1. Once again the DMX firmware hasn’t let me down, but I haven’t really done anything major with it yet, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed. As you can see from the pics, the nylon spacers aren’t all that different from the poly tubing ones I was going to make, except they are exactly .25″ and they are exactly straight. Considering they were only .06, I think it was money well spent so that I don’t have the get the length of the tubing just right, and worry about it getting cut off straight.

I’ve been trying to figure out where I’m going to mount the Ren2DMX adapter boards (assuming I actually get them), I’m leaning towards double stick tape on the door of the enclosure, but we’ll see if I get them, and what they look like if I do. Next on the list, get the other three boards tested, finish mounting them in the heat sinks, and get the wires in the remaining two enclosures. Then I’ll have to get pipe mounts attached and glued in before I can start wiring the boards to the plugs. Still plenty to do and I haven’t even begun to think about sequencing yet… How many days are left???

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Yesterday I confirmed with JEC that new Pixel boards were in progress, so I went ahead and placed a Mouser order for the parts to populate them. The PICs are on backorder, but that’s ok, I have 1 to play with if need be, and the rest will be coming sometime this month. Since they were so cheap in quantities, I went ahead and got the .25″ spacers for the Ren24 PCBs. Yesterday I also got the Ren24 heat sinks drilled out for the triacs and the mounting holes to mount it in the enclosure. Last night I got the enclosures drilled out and was going to get the grounding bars and standoffs glued in, but found out I had the wrong bolts for them. Today I got the right bolts from the hardware and got the grounding bars and the standoffs glued in.

Tonight I removed the 120R resistors from the Ren24s in anticipation that I’ll be running the DMX firmware. If I decide to run the standard firmware, rumor has it that it’ll work without the terminating resistors, but i cleaned the holes up nice, so if I need to I can put new ones in later. I have the boards in the heat sinks temporarily so that I can mark the PCB mounting holes and hopefully get them drilled out Monday so I’m ready to mount once the spacers get here.

Last week I also decided on permanently mounting a piece of PVC pipe to the back of the enclosures using hose clamps and the provided holes. I will then be able to put a stake in the ground and slip the PVC over the stake. I will get pics up ASAP. I got some gray caulking that I’m going to fill in the mounting holes where the hose clamps go to keep the water out. I’m also going to cover all the exposed screw heads on the back of the enclosure with caulk to be absolutely sure that no water gets in there.

Next up tomorrow (hopefully): Stripping the remaining 72 cord ends and getting them into the enclosures.

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I wired up a couple of cat5 jacks to convert the DMX wiring into the renard wiring. The pinouts are like this

I only programmed the first pics on the Renards just as a proof of concept. The last one in the chain had channel 1 as its start address, and the first one in the chain had channel 25 as its start address. I ran a test sequence using my dmx dongle and everything seemed to work OK. I’m pretty encouraged that I should be able to run the renards on DMX for my show this year. That will be pretty cool because the wiring should become a lot simpler, and that way everything will be running DMX. I also like that channel 1 is channel 1 is channel 1, it doesn’t matter where in the chain it lies. I definitely am going to need a DMX splitter because between my 30 pixels and the renards and whatever else I come up with, I’ll be way over the 32 device limit on a DMX line. RJ has talked about a coop for his DMX splitter, so I might order the parts for that in anticipation that he does it. I would love to try and etch my own, but I don’t know when I’ll get to it and it would probably end up costing me more in the long run.

Speaking of etching, I talked to April today about going to Light Up Ohio 2009 in Columbus in May. She has no desire to go listen to light geeks all day, but she says I can go if she can go shop while I’m there. Seems like a reasonable compromise. They are supposed to be having a talk on etching your own boards that I’m pretty excited about, so hopefully I can go!

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I was at the hardware today and came across some faucet washers. I was never really happy with my poly tubing spacers because it was up to me to get them all precisely the correct length. Then there was the issue of cutting them straight, etc. etc. I came across a thread a DIYC that indicated that the correct spacer height was .25″, and they gave a mouse part number. I had myself convinced I was going to go with those, but the problem was I’m not ready to do another Mouser order just yet, but I am ready to mount the boards.

Anyhow, I came across these faucet washers and when I measured them they were about 1/32″ of an inch short of .25. So I bought a couple to try out. Tonight I took the one board I actually had mounted (yes, I am that crazy) out of its enclosure and removed the heatsink. It needed to be done anyhow, because I’m 95% sure I’m going to be running DMX firmware, pending any problems I find with it between now and Christmas, but to do that I have to remove the 120R terminating resistors on each board, including the one that was already mounted. Anyhow, since it needed to come out anyhow, I took the opportunity to play with the spacers. The faucet washers work pretty well, but that 1/32″ seems to be pretty critical. I was still getting deflection of the PCB until I added a #8 stainless steel washer on top of the faucet washer. This seemed to be just right and brought it back to the .25″ that I needed.

Now I’m back to wondering if I should wait until I do the Mouser order. I like the idea of using the proper spacer and the Mouser ones are 10¢ cheaper, not including the stainless washer, so they are a bit more cheaper than that. Some good news, however, my method of attaching everything to the enclosure worked out as it was relatively simple to remove it again. The goop glued the screws and wire nut stand offs to the enclosure, so re-assembly should be easier than the original assembly. I now have a new idea for mounting the enclosures. I am thinking about running a piece of aluminum across the back with two #10 screws. There are two standoffs that would hold the aluminum off the back off the case, leaving a gap where perhaps a hook of some sort could grasp the aluminum. I still have to play with ideas in my head a bit more, but I think I like that idea better than using the pipe clamp knock-outs on the enclosure and attaching it to a piece of PVC.

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I thought with the success I was having getting things to work lately, I would try running the boards at 115,200 bps. Much to my surprise it worked using the diag code. I tried it with RS232 and with RS485. I then ran production code at that speed, and it seems to work OK. I’ll keep my eyes open for any problems, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed!

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At least on the Ren24s (I Hope). I finished up the last three tonight. If I don’t solder another triac for a while, I wouldn’t be too upset. I set about testing them and immediately started getting framing errors just like last time. I wasn’t real thrilled, but I knew the connections and whatnot worked, so I jumped right in to see if I could find the root of the problem. First I tried all three boards, got the same results on the first two, and on the last one all that happened was the COMM FR light was on, no COMM OK light this time. Apparently if you forget to put the RS485 chips in the sockets (wonder who did that), this is how the board acts. Once I put the chips in… I got the same results as the other two. After some trial and error it appears to have been bad code. I had been using the diag file off of kostyun.com, both in testing the first board and these latest ones. I knew that the version I compiled off the wiki worked at 19200, so I switched to that and it worked perfectly. Somewhere along the line, I thought to change that code to 57600 and recompile it. I reloaded the PIC and still no framing errors… YEA!!! Just for shits and giggles, I took my RS232->RS485 converter out of the loop to see if they would work with plain ole RS232, and THEY DID!!! So it appears that the problem all along was the code off of kostyun.com. I read somewhere that Frank compiled it right off the wiki, but something must be different, because the code I compile certainly works, while that version doesn’t. I ran a MD5 calculator on both files and the hashes are different, so something is definitely different, but who knows what. Just glad to put that issue under my belt.

I still have to put the optos in and test the channels, but everything looks good so far. Think I’d better go to bed!

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Worked some more on the remaining Ren24s tonight. I got as far as getting the triacs in one, and decided I had enough with triacs for tonight, so I’ll work on the other two tomorrow night. Getting pretty close to having them done, probably one or two more nights, then its on to testing and mounting them in the heatsinks and enclosures. As promised I took some pictures of my method for aligning the triacs. Basically it is the same as what was found here, but I am using a couple of metal rules rather than plastic ones. By sandwiching the tabs on the traics between two rulers and taping them together, you can them make sure the entire row is perpendicular to the PCB very easily before soldering away.

I took some time last night to lay out where the various channels would be located and where the controllers would be located. I mocked up our house in Google Sketchup, and I will probably use that mockup in my adjustable preview in Vixen. Sketchup wasn’t too helpful for making a diagram of where the controllers and wire were going to do, so as soon as I find something better to make a diagram in, I will post it here.

My 100 amp outdoor sub panel came in yesterday at the hardware, as soon as I get some time, I will be building a portable stand to mount it and four GFCI circuits on for running the controllers. Each controller will be plugged into its own GFCI outlet that will be on its own 15 amp breaker in the sub panel. It will be plugged into a 50 amp outlet that will be permanently mounted on the outside of the house. I originally thought the sub panel was overkill, but in figuring out the channels and stuff last night, I’m already at 30 amps worth of lights. Granted that is if they are all on at the same time, which they won’t be, but still better safe than sorry. That project probably won’t happen until the summer though.

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