Hello all,
I'm a serious electronics novice and have a question to pose...
My band has been trying to incorporate drum triggered lights into our set for quite some time. I've been fiddling with the Arduino Uno R3 and a powerswitch tail IIU and have managed to set up a halogen builders light (one of those yellow things with a handle at the top and big glass front) to fire for half a second every time a drum is hit, using a slight variation of the example "Knock Sensor" code. I think I've got my head around how to adapt the code to add more sensors and send that to separate outputs so that different drums will trigger different lights.
However, we don't have the money at the moment to get any more PowerSwitch tails delivered from the US, or purchase any more mains-powered lights. I have a pair of 3W High Power LED's from Maplin that I was using with 9v batteries for another project that put out a huge amount of light for their small size.
Basically, I was wondering if there was a simple and cost effective way of building a 9v battery powered version of the Powerswitch Tail to get these lights firing in the same manner as my Halogen light. I understand the principles of how relay switches work, but am unsure of how exactly to integrate them properly into the project.
I tried hooking the 3W LED's straight into the Arduino, which worked, but obviously the Arduino's 5v output just didn't quite cut it, they turned on, but were pretty dim.
I'm sure this is a pretty simple problem to overcome (people building mind controlled robots etc. with arduino's at their core), but as I said, this world is new (and extremely exciting) to me.
Cheers,
Jesse.
