"If only ____ existed" let me make it for you!

[dylanlights]

Hi Control Booth Community!

I'm entering my 4th year as an electrical engineering student, and trying to come up with some awesome senior project idea's. And what is more awesome than lighting!!!

If you have anything that you wish your theatre had, but can't seem to find what your looking for, and it has to do with lighting. Write back and let me know.

I am pretty familiar with DMX512, last year I made a project using a development board, that used a color light sensor to read and identify gel colors and then took the colors it read and mimicked it on a ColorKinetics LED light.

I don't have any of my own equipment but have access to a small theatre's gear. They don't have any moving lights, so unless I am making something that moves... can't do much there. (I've thought about making a very basic -and cheap- strictly horizontal moving gadget that you'd be able to put on to any existing light to make it move a little)

Anyways, let me know of any things that you thing would be cool if they existed. I've got an entire school year of sleepless nights to make something happen!

Bests,
Dylan

 

[Grog12]

"If only the endless pile of money I'd like to pour into my lighting system for a complete overhaul existed."

I'd like to see an LED ERS that you could dial patterns/color into. But that just may be my own fantasy world.

 

[photoatdv]

If only a really cheap low-res LED wall existed. Please make THAT for me . 24' x 42' in 3' x 3' panels with the ability to set it for pixel size of 1" to 3' on the unit (so I can use it with a 1 universe console or a media server and GMA2 depending on the show. While we're at please make it IP65 so I don't have to worry about sudden rainstorms and we can hose it off after those dusty/rainy/gross outdoor shows.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

If only a really cheap low-res LED wall existed. Please make THAT for me . 24' x 42' in 3' x 3' panels with the ability to set it for pixel size of 1" to 3' on the unit (so I can use it with a 1 universe console or a media server and GMA2 depending on the show. While we're at please make it IP65 so I don't have to worry about sudden rainstorms and we can hose it off after those dusty/rainy/gross outdoor shows.

if you are using a media server how would the screen's resolution change the amount of DMX it needed?

 

[photoatdv]

if you are using a media server how would the screen's resolution change the amount of DMX it needed?

I meant to say GMA2 or media server . So yeah, lets add in an interface to take a media server output too.

 

[derekleffew]

... last year I made a project using a development board, that used a color light sensor to read and identify gel colors and then took the colors it read and mimicked it on a ColorKinetics LED light. ...

If you still have that device, I'd really like to know how accurate the spreadsheet I posted here is.

 

[JohnHuntington]

Hi Control Booth Community!
I'm entering my 4th year as an electrical engineering student, and trying to come up with some awesome senior project idea's. And what is more awesome than lighting!!!

This sounds like a fun year! The one thing I would suggest is that if you make any lighting control product, that you have it speak ACN instead of DMX. Any help we can get getting us to an ACN future is what we need more than anything.

I have some basic info on ACN here:
- ACN -- ESTA E1.17 Advanced Control Network

John

 

[MNicolai]

If you want to look into an ACN-based project or ideas, PM me. I know a certain software engineer at a certain company who has a vested interest in ACN being brought to life and she could have some ideas for you.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

How about something about the size of a regular DMM that can send a video signal down a VGA or BNC cable to a monitor, for purpose of testing that cable.

 

[Anvilx]

I have been dreaming about an LED fresnel for a while now.

 

[ship]

A plug into the brain educational training program so "skilled" tech people become skilled to their pay grade. This especially on the subject of lamps. (very sortened rant.)

A better Edison and twist lock style of plug which more takes into account various sizes of cable in the grip of it. Adjustable as it were, rounded edges so it pulls thru a truss, yet will take from at last 18-2 SPT thru 10-3 SJOOW cable in gripping better. All the plugs on the market at this point are crap. Nothing best grips the cable held and most brands normally crush in being over tensioned. Bates did great work on such a concept if only their instruction sheet could A) be read and B) be properly used in all cases. Instruction sheet could use some further more specific help but is in plug good concept for how to do a new Edison say plug and one that properly grips cable. Strain reliefs I think good to work on and something I present to my Leviton and Hubbell vendor reps when they visit.

Should you come up with something, make sure it's not the coincentric rubber ring used on many Euro CeeForm type plugs - rings work great in removing as many of them as you need to fit the cable. Unfortunately, under tension, such grips with pre-cut rings also allow the rubber to flow and break free from the cord grip so as to than fail.

 

[rsmentele]

How about a spotlight, that follows an actor remotely... The spotlight would essentially be a moving light, however it would repond based on the position of a 'location transmitter' worn by the actor... there would be multiple transmitters sending different frequencies, so that you could have mulitple actors wear them, you could then tell the spot what transmitter to repond to and when. And then, like a moving light, you control intensity, fade time, color, size exc. One thing that you would want to include is a regulator on the sensitiviy of the movement of the spot based off of the movement of the actor. For two reasons, sensitivity would have to increase, as distance increases, and also you would want to be able to regulate how much the spot moves when the actor moves, you wouldnt want the spot to shake violently if the actor shakes violenty in a scene.


Just a thought....

 

[derekleffew]

dylanlights, is one of the requirements that the product can't be existing? Could it be an improvement on, or different method of accomplishing the same or a similar, task?

rsmentele, see Wybron, Inc. - Autopilot II .

 

[Dsotm75]

..I have wondered if there were such a device like the autopilot in existance or not...extremely cool

dylanlights, I'm actually in the same boat as you with having to pick out a senior project for my electrical engineering program. I thought about maybe creating an inexpensive MPX to DMX converter...simply because I work with some community theatres that still utilize MPX dimmers, and they cannot afford to upgrade their dimmers to DMX control, but can afford to put a computer based lighting console in...but I'm not sold on it at this point...

 

[MNicolai]

..I have wondered if there were such a device like the autopilot in existance or not...extremely cool

dylanlights, I'm actually in the same boat as you with having to pick out a senior project for my electrical engineering program. I thought about maybe creating an inexpensive MPX to DMX converter...simply because I work with some community theatres that still utilize MPX dimmers, and they cannot afford to upgrade their dimmers to DMX control, but can afford to put a computer based lighting console in...but I'm not sold on it at this point...

I don't know about how your program is setup, but you might want to shoot for something a little larger than that. At my school, people go much larger scale than that for their senior design projects. Two projects currently in motion are for improving hybrid cars, and another group is working in-depth with robotics. On the other hand, it's 3-5 students to each design team. Recreating something that already exists, has existed for awhile, and can be bought mass-produced for a few hundred bucks seems low-key in comparison to what I know my school does, but I have no idea what your school expects of you and if you work on the project solo or with other students.

 

[Dsotm75]

I don't know about how your program is setup, but you might want to shoot for something a little larger than that. At my school, people go much larger scale than that for their senior design projects. Two projects currently in motion are for improving hybrid cars, and another group is working in-depth with robotics. On the other hand, it's 3-5 students to each design team. Recreating something that already exists, has existed for awhile, and can be bought mass-produced for a few hundred bucks seems low-key in comparison to what I know my school does, but I have no idea what your school expects of you and if you work on the project solo or with other students.

For our senior projects, we work in groups of two usually. Honestly, more often than not, the senior projects are pretty low key compared to where you go to school. Some project ideas right now that we can pick from include creating a hydraulic lab station with data acquisition capabilities for the mechanical engineering department, improving the alternative energies lab equipment for the electrical engineering department, and creating a spring tester for the mechanical engineering depeartment. It bums me out, but about 99 percent of the senior projects done here never leave the building. We just lack the resources to do anything super cool like playing with robotics or anything like that...

 

[MNicolai]

"Lack resources." Pfft, that's what student loans are for (says the guy who will probably be $100k in the red when he graduates).

 

[dylanlights]

If you still have that device, I'd really like to know how accurate the spreadsheet I posted here is.

Unfortunately, the sensor we were using was the professors, and we had to give it back.

Here is a spreadsheet I was using, its in 3-bit HEX so sorry if that will take an extra minute to translate.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc...NzFUd2lNeWc1UGY2YkxSU1E&hl=en&authkey=CJWg-xk

These were the values with a little bit of scaling algorithm we had to develop. The colors on the side are just ballpark (not the actual color percentages). In the project one thing we noticed was that the green sensor (and green LED) seemed to be weakest so it had a hard time replicating green colors. It also had a hard time doing very white/pale colors, but thats typical of RGB LED fixtures in my opinion.

Hope thats helpful

 

[dylanlights]

How about a spotlight, that follows an actor remotely... The spotlight would essentially be a moving light, however it would repond based on the position of a 'location transmitter' worn by the actor... there would be multiple transmitters sending different frequencies, so that you could have mulitple actors wear them, you could then tell the spot what transmitter to repond to and when. And then, like a moving light, you control intensity, fade time, color, size exc. One thing that you would want to include is a regulator on the sensitiviy of the movement of the spot based off of the movement of the actor. For two reasons, sensitivity would have to increase, as distance increases, and also you would want to be able to regulate how much the spot moves when the actor moves, you wouldnt want the spot to shake violently if the actor shakes violenty in a scene.


Just a thought....

I was actually thinking about this until someone told me "it's been done". At the moment I don't have access to any moving lights but I may be able to figure out something.

My idea on solving violently shaking concept was to create like an invisible box around the performer, and whenever they touch the perimeter line, the light would adjust.

I haven't ever actually seen the "existing device" itself so maybe I'll make it still!

 

[dylanlights]

This sounds like a fun year! The one thing I would suggest is that if you make any lighting control product, that you have it speak ACN instead of DMX. Any help we can get getting us to an ACN future is what we need more than anything.

I have some basic info on ACN here:
- ACN -- ESTA E1.17 Advanced Control Network

John

Thanks for the suggestion! I honestly don't actually know much about ACN, but if its he way of the future... better incorporate it! I've also looked a little bit at what I could do with RDM (though thats back in DMX land I guess).

Thanks for the link to the article!