Theater help for LED light strips

Projects General Guidance
1

I am working on a set for a local production of Matilda. They want to have all 26 letters of the alphabet to light up at different times in a song. We need to be able to control them remotely from the tech booth which will not have line of sight to them. I have used an ESP32 to control one light but not 26. We want to use the LED neon tube for the letters.

Any advice on how to set this up to control 26 letters individually?

Thanks!

2

Distance between two locations ?

A block diagram and proposed schematic will go a long way.

3

It is about 75 feet. We've eliminated bluetooth because we have some current problems with connectivity. But we have good wifi.

We dont have a diagram yet. Just started yesterday and have 3 months to figure it out.

4
  1. 26 light switches.
  2. If the sequence never changes, a single push button connected to a counter that closes "the next relay" to light "the next letter"
    3. Rotary Encoder (to 26 relays)
5

Suggest looking at, ESP-NOW

Depending on nearby objects 75 feet should be obtainable.

6

This looks really interesting. I am wondering if I could connect multiple LED strips to one ESP32 board to limit the amount of power connections needed. Then let the board control which ones to turn on. As each one gets turned on, they will stay lit until the whole alphabet is lit up. Also they do not get turned on at the same intervals. It is based on the music from the show.

7

The most obvious is to go for the business standard DMX, which can be reliably transmitted and received using an AVR MCU (UNO, nano etc) or any ESP, actually there are options for almost any MCU, but AVR's are cheapest. This will provide you with a stable 'wired' solution that can be connected to any standard club or theatre system. Almost all lighting guys i know will want wired systems for reliability reasons. A newer standard that supports both wired (ethernet cable) and wireless (WiFi) is ArtNet, which is an expansion of DMX with more modern technology, and which is used in most clubs and theatres as well these days. Any communication protocol that you create outside of these 2 will most likely result in an extra piece of software or hardware inside the tech-booth.

8

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