For an Escape Room in the Netherlands i'm looking for the best way to make the integrated lights flicker at a certain moment (for a haunted effect). Around this effect, the lights should be on as normal.
These lights are normal wall-lightingfixtures with normal (ca. 25 W) lightbulbs on 230 V. There are 6 of these fixtures hanging on the wall, still to be connected:
A lot of elements in the room are arduino based, and all stand-alone. I cannot imagen the ardiuno is not suited for this type of effect. I'm not the best programmer, so don't expect me to know a whole lot about all of this, but i am not a complete noob.
I really hope you guys and girls can point me out in the right direction. The only things i found where how to flicker a single or some LED's, but this is ofcourse someting else.
For an Escape Room in the Netherlands i'm looking for the best way to make the integrated lights flicker at a certain moment (for a haunted effect). Around this effect, the lights should be on as normal.
These lights are normal wall-lightingfixtures with normal (ca. 25 W) lightbulbs on 230 V. There are 6 of these fixtures hanging on the wall, still to be connected:
A lot of elements in the room are arduino based, and all stand-alone. I cannot imagen the ardiuno is not suited for this type of effect. I'm not the best programmer, so don't expect me to know a whole lot about all of this, but i am not a complete noob.
I really hope you guys and girls can point me out in the right direction. The only things i found where how to flicker a single or some LED's, but this is ofcourse someting else.
thanks!
I would run the lamps through a solid state relay, then drive the relay with an Arduino output pin. You would leave the pin written high for full light brightness, then bring the pin low for small, random times to flicker the lights, then leave the pin high again for full brightness (or low for full off!).
A solid state relay will also provide you with nice, safe isolation from the 230v AC mains (obviously VERY important - you don't want to fry your Arduino or, worse, get a 230VAC shock!).
I'm now wondering if i may be able to use a normal relay instead of an SSR. I know SSR is better because there are no moving parts in it, and in my opinion that is the better option when i want those lights to flicker short and fast.
Can someone please tell me if a normal relay is going to cause problems with fast sequences? Will it brake down fast?
Can someone please tell me if a normal relay is going to cause problems with fast sequences? Will it brake down fast?
IMO - the worst thing about a mechanical relay in this application would be the clicking noise.
A mechanical relay can usually switch in about 1/10th of second, so that's probably fast enough. That's about the response time of an incandescent bulb...
It will eventually wear out. You can check the specs, but I think they are usually rated for something like 1 million cycles.
You can find lots of SSRs that can be driven directly from the Arduino. Most mechanical relays will require a driver transistor or MOSFET, and usually they need 12V.
With a relais you can not flicker correct and dimming is not possible, with a Solid State it is no big problem.
i do have them here on stock.
You dont need anything extra just the SSR.
Think about a analog control so you can give them a real haunted image:
Can be done when having an input that sees zero crossing. a simple optocoupler with a few resistors, so the output gives you a 100 Hz signal,
then with using timers you can set a certain value, you may use random, however in efteling(villa volta) it is in an array.
and there is also a netherlands speaking forum here.
btw i am also from netherlands.
