Analog Dub Lighting

DIY STUFF
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Hey all! Long time no see, been out in the world, making beeps and boops!

I’m at the start of a new project and I just wanted to sanity check my idea with some of the wizards here.

I’m part of a soundsystem crew and I’d like to add a lighting component to our gigs, something we can throw up as part of our dub soundsystem rig. Obviously, I don’t want to do anything the easy way, so I’m hoping to eschew LEDs and DMX controllers in favor of incandescents and control voltage.

The idea in three parts - lighting modules, a control box, and transmission cables.

For the lighting modules, I want three controllable colors, ideally for nice old school bright bulbs. I’ve discovered that there’s something for this purpose called a ‘TRIAC’, and there are already plans/boards for these circuits which dim a bulb using 3-5V of control voltage: AC Dimmer Module, 1 Channel, 3.3V/5V logic, AC 50/60hz, 110V~400V - Robotdyn or for multiple bulbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKI38nchcvA

The second bit will be a control box with buttons and knobs, something the DJs can play around with along with the music, or set some oscillators/patterns, or use the music being played to transform into control voltage. For this I can either use an Arduino or analog circuits, I don’t think this will be too tricky since it’s basically the same as the usual synth modules.

The final problem is how do you actually get the signal to the lighting pods? Running three guitar cables to each lighting pod seems heavy and expensive. So, what’s cheap and suited for running multiple data lines… good old Cat 5! I thinking 24 AWG Cat5 should be fine for carrying 3-5V signals without causing too much heat. Then I can add in/output cat5 connections to each lighting pod and string up the whole club with a daisy chain. I was also thinking about using radio, but maybe that’s overkill.

The one shortcoming with this system is that each pod isn’t individually addressable, so I can’t for instance run an LFO of light around the room. However, it’s easy to imagine the control box having multiple independent output channels (light in stereo?), but that might be more than is needed for the first version of this project.

Does my idea make sense? Is there something obvious I’m missing here, or are there better solutions that have already been done?

Cheers!

1 Like
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Go the easy way,

You will get more satisfaction quicker from follwing the norm than trying to do something different , also messing with high voltage and triacs is not so safe.

We have some none LED fixtures in our rental stock and they never go out , have not done in years as they are so much heavier and less reliable than a descent equivilent LED fixture.

You could build some light cubes using addressable LED tape and use an Arduino as a DMX reciver to control the tape.

And build a button box with an Arduino to send DMX.

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100% agree. Use an Arduino to build a cv-to-dmx box, and run off-the-shelf dmx fixtures and infrastructure.

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When we leave a install for “Others” to control, we give them a Wolfmix , it’s like a launchpad for lighting… 15mins of tuition and they are set to go. ( Takes that long just to tell them where the power button is on our main lighting desk :slight_smile: )