Hi all,
I'm working on a project that involves strobing lights hooked up to a midi controller.
We could either hack into an existing strobe light and modify the timer (wondering how plausible this is) or even better, modify a string of christmas lights to strobe at the speed we want so that we can create strings of patterns (see attached photo for inspiration). We also want to control the strobing of a light variably via a midi controller knob.
Some key requirements:
a) Strobe should pulse at 60hz plus... Maybe from 60hz to 75hz even
b) have timing of the strobe link to a single knob of a midi controller.
c) Ideally that midi controller nob would also be able to link to ableton.
The basic Idea is to have the same knob controlling the speed of the strobe and the speed of the music.
Is this possible, and if so, what are some resources that can help me get started?
For further inspiration of illusions created using a strobe effect, see videos about "levitating water":
You certainly can't strobe incandescent bulbs at 60 Hz. It might work with LED lights if you over-drive the current and use short pulses. Did you mean LED Christmas lights?
I don't understand how the photograph relates to strobing. You generally use a strobe to view the motion of a moving object. I can't tell what, if anything, is moving in your picture.
Thanks for the response! To clarify, we are building a Time Fountain.
The pictures are there as a reference to the type of space we are creating: the room will be lined with strands of lights. The effect and theme of this is "Infinity Room", hence the image to give a sense of what we're going for.
The question I have is about building this strobe circuit. Rather than individually solder a bunch of LEDs, we are wondering if it's possible to manipulate a string of LEDs. The reason for this is because we are trying to create the "Time Fountain" effect for an entire room rather than a small box. The LED Christmas lights will span the entire room and will be the only light in there.
Here is the interaction:
You walk into this infinity room and there's a midi controller in the middle of the room with clear instructions to turn the knob. There is "rain" and water pumps along the edges of the room. Turning the knob alters the speed of the lights strobing in the room so it appears that the rain is moving backwards and you are moving backwards in time. Turning the knob also affects the music, which slows, distorts and also begins to play backwards (we have the music and midi controller figured out -- we are trying to work out the light circuit for this experience).
We are trying to decide whether we can use LED christmas lights and strobe them at 60+ Hz, or if we'll need to build a custom LED array and light circuit, or if we can modify the Instructables circuit to apply to the Christmas lights. As a last resort, we will buy strobe lights that do this for us, but then we will need to control them with the midi controller and will require hacking anyway.
What do people think is the best direction moving forward?
To clarify, we are building a Time Fountain.
Yet another crappy instructables where the author has not got a clue how to drive LEDs. Do not use this circuit.
Does anyone have any insight as to how I might be able to modify a strand of LEDs to do what I'm trying to do?
You can't do it with Christmas lights - they are all on and all off together. You need individually addressable LED strips, which have a control chip per LED, such as WS2811. Or WS2812B, which are control chip & RGB LED all as one IC.
You could build or modify a [u]dance strobe[/u]. (These things typically go to about 10 Hz and that's why you need to modify it.) They are typically DMX controlled, and you might be able to get a faster strobe rate with DMX.
If you can find a DMX strobe that runs at 60-75Hz, it would probably be easier to use DMX than MIDI.
You'll need a transistor or MOSFET to "power" and control the LEDs, and you can find examples of boosting voltage & current. You'd probably want to put many LEDs in series and use a higher voltage (higher than 5V and maybe higher than 12V).
You can also find examples using MIDI with the Arduino.
Re: CrossRoads, I'm wondering if the LEDs need to be individually addressable. For our purposes it would OK to turn them all on and all off, so long as the pulse rate is about 60Hz. Is it still impossible to do this with the Christmas Lights?
RE: DVDdoug, did you mean modify the strobe with a MOSFET or create a new circuit using it? Can you link to potential candidates of circuits that will help us do what we're trying to do? I can read schematics, I just think you might have a better searching vocabulary about this than I do.
Any links or leads is hugely appreciated, I know you guys know this stuff better than me and can hone in on the good stuff and weed out the bad stuff.
