Uncle Dirtnap
Active Member
This one is a head scratcher, at least for me. I am trying to figure out a way to read the the level of a dimmer using something like an Arduino. If it was just modifying the voltage when dimming, that would be easy enough, but SCR dimmers (and these are definitely 1975 vintage SCR dimmer packs) use phase-cut dimming. That lowers the EFFECTIVE voltage by messing with the waveform, and between the 60hz power and the smoothing nature incandescent it works great for lights, but not so much for digital reading of the signal.
(Ultimately, my plan is to control a few wireless on stage devices using RF from some a patch panel off stage. If the dimmer is at 10% then I'll set the device to 10%, etc. Board op can control things! I just happen to have a handful of batteries, arduinos, and RF modules, so it seemed like a fun project that could be useful later on. With a few channels I could control other things - color, etc. I know I could just run some DMX, or use one of the 8000 wireless standards arond now to do it, but I was trying to do it with what I have and it is, after all, a juicy problem.)
Any ideas?
-rj
(Ultimately, my plan is to control a few wireless on stage devices using RF from some a patch panel off stage. If the dimmer is at 10% then I'll set the device to 10%, etc. Board op can control things! I just happen to have a handful of batteries, arduinos, and RF modules, so it seemed like a fun project that could be useful later on. With a few channels I could control other things - color, etc. I know I could just run some DMX, or use one of the 8000 wireless standards arond now to do it, but I was trying to do it with what I have and it is, after all, a juicy problem.)
Any ideas?
-rj