Wireless DMX Souvenir backpack

gafftaper

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Saw this video and thought it was pretty amazing when you think about all the technology going on to make it possible. I'm sure the backpacks cost a lot more than I'm willing to spend. But what cool use of the technology!

And how does the DMX network work? Do devices somehow log themselves in? Its like concert wrist band technology, but WAY more complex.


 
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I clicked on the link because I thought there might be a light show involved. i was not disappointed. The show is synced to music so I assume the backpack is started when the show starts. It would be nice if the backpack could play the music too.
 
I did a little more research and it's not an official Disney product. It's a guy on Etsy who is currently sold out but "just ordered the parts to build 11 more". So not official. Just a hard working guy in his garage.

So since it's not official, I assume that means it's not wireless DMX and not connected to the network. Instead it's aparently a really carefully pre- programmed arduino show. Still a ton of impressive hard work for the creator, but not the crazy tech I was thinking it might be. Disney has made light up mouse ears that are similar to concert wrist band technology and flash with the show. I was thinking this is an even fancier version of that. Imagine if you could walk around Disneyland and your backpack would log in to different wireless DMX signals and adjust lighting to match. But it's not quite that cool.
 
Imagine if you could walk around Disneyland and your backpack would log in to different wireless DMX signals and adjust lighting to match. But it's not quite that cool.
Technically, this can be done. When using our wireless we do not recommend it since it can affect reliability but if you set all of your transmitters to the same SHoW ID the receivers will listen to the strongest. The issue that you can run into is the receiver will stay connected to the transmitter until it loses signal. So the transmitter you want it listening to might have a stronger signal but you could be moving away from another transmitter that still has a connection.

The only people that use our system this way is the film/tv people. They like being able to move lights between sets without making changes to the lights to match the transmitters on each set. The few that have done it have had no issues but we always advise against it.

If someone were to come up with an RDM preset trigger device it could probably work with minimal user interaction.
 
Once upon a time, glow-with-the-show used IR and the protocol had been reverse-engineered by hobbyists, not that it was very sophisticated. If the system is still operational then it wouldn't be difficult to trigger synchronization to run sequences to the backpack LEDs based on those events.
 
Technically, this can be done. When using our wireless we do not recommend it since it can affect reliability but if you set all of your transmitters to the same SHoW ID the receivers will listen to the strongest. The issue that you can run into is the receiver will stay connected to the transmitter until it loses signal. So the transmitter you want it listening to might have a stronger signal but you could be moving away from another transmitter that still has a connection.
Thanks Harrison! My initial thought was that there would be signal confusion similar to not terminating a DMX line because of multiple transmitters. Or you would have to have limited areas that it works in with dead areas between transmitters. But it sounds like it's more like wireless microphones selecting the frequency with the strongest signal. Which would work, but it's a lot of tech to put into a souvenir backpack.
 
I did a little more research and it's not an official Disney product. It's a guy on Etsy who is currently sold out but "just ordered the parts to build 11 more". So not official. Just a hard working guy in his garage.

So since it's not official, I assume that means it's not wireless DMX and not connected to the network. Instead it's aparently a really carefully pre- programmed arduino show. Still a ton of impressive hard work for the creator, but not the crazy tech I was thinking it might be. Disney has made light up mouse ears that are similar to concert wrist band technology and flash with the show. I was thinking this is an even fancier version of that. Imagine if you could walk around Disneyland and your backpack would log in to different wireless DMX signals and adjust lighting to match. But it's not quite that cool.

Maybe a bluetooth setup would work? Link your phone to the backpack, and then an app could feed the control signal to the backpack based on your location in the park. And then even when your not at the park you could still use the app on your phone to playback various preprogrammed "shows."
 
Maybe a bluetooth setup would work? Link your phone to the backpack, and then an app could feed the control signal to the backpack based on your location in the park. And then even when your not at the park you could still use the app on your phone to playback various preprogrammed "shows."
That's sort of how they do the parade music. They do some crazy stuff to make their GPS system highly accurate. Then they track the floats. There's a background parade music track always playing and as the float enters an area the system fades out the general track and brings up the float's specific theme. When the float leaves it fades back to the general theme and waits for the next one. They keep a generous distance between floats of different themes so that the music never conflicts.

Using Harrison's technology you could pretty easily do different lighting for different areas of the park. You would have some confusion in between areas, but once you are fully into a new land it could have a whole new look. That would be pretty sweet! But again this would involve an insane amount of programming a pretty powerful battery, and the expense of Wireless DMX receivers in the backpack. But it would be AWESOME! Just imagine as this technology gets better, smaller, and cheaper. We may see some crazy cool stuff like this.
 
Using Harrison's technology you could pretty easily do different lighting for different areas of the park. You would have some confusion in between areas, but once you are fully into a new land it could have a whole new look. That would be pretty sweet! But again this would involve an insane amount of programming a pretty powerful battery, and the expense of Wireless DMX receivers in the backpack. But it would be AWESOME! Just imagine as this technology gets better, smaller, and cheaper. We may see some crazy cool stuff like this.
With the receiver card the cost isn't crazy compared to putting an actual device into the backpack. They run $275 so it would still be an expensive souvenir especially after adding in all of the other tech.
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A networked solution would probably be cheaper but then you lose the show programming finesse of DMX.
 
That's sort of how they do the parade music. They do some crazy stuff to make their GPS system highly accurate. Then they track the floats. There's a background parade music track always playing and as the float enters an area the system fades out the general track and brings up the float's specific theme. When the float leaves it fades back to the general theme and waits for the next one. They keep a generous distance between floats of different themes so that the music never conflicts.

Using Harrison's technology you could pretty easily do different lighting for different areas of the park. You would have some confusion in between areas, but once you are fully into a new land it could have a whole new look. That would be pretty sweet! But again this would involve an insane amount of programming a pretty powerful battery, and the expense of Wireless DMX receivers in the backpack. But it would be AWESOME! Just imagine as this technology gets better, smaller, and cheaper. We may see some crazy cool stuff like this.

I still don't see the need for wireless DMX, it's not like someone is manually running these shows. They're all using timecode. Just use a $20 Raspberry Pi Zero that already has wifi and bluetooth built into it. It could tap into the parks wifi, or use a phone app connected via bluetooth. Just sync up the time on the devices and have the pi playback the prerecorded effects. Then power the whole thing with a cheap battery bank. $50 worth of hardware in a $50 backpack that they could probably sell for $250+
 

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