Hey there, folks. I'm super new to arduino and xbee and just wanted to see how feasible this project idea could be. Essentially, I want a strip of ten buttons, each one remotely lighting an LED from a distance. I'm building this for a live music setup where LED cubes will be place near each of the musicians on stage. I have a couple ideas of how i will approach this, I'm just looking for the most inexpensive method of essentially having 10 remote LED channels. Any suggestions or just an idea of how many arduino boards and xbee radios ill need would be greatly appreciated!
Lots of places sell these and you can check the spec sheets...
Here for example...
http://www.solarbotics.com/search/xbee/
And Sparkfun and Lady Ada...
But one for your control station -- one for each cube -- unless speed becomes and issue.
An Xbee might be overkill for your project. I use them for collecting a lot of information forward/back from devices (robots, etc.).
I think a IR system:
or a stomp switch with however many MCUs you may need. You could have a master control MCU or just somebody operating the $5 remote. Also you could hook up a "noise detector" so that the cubes pulse (just a few hundred milliseconds) to the percussion.
Just a thought.
Hmm might have to do a little research into IR stuff. Thanks for the help!
Would I have to buy different IR sensors that each specifically read a different frequency in order to allow each channel to work independently?
This link to Ken Shirriff's blog should help you get to grips with IR:
But in summary, no. Think of your tv remote control - it can provide different functions using only one transmitter and receiver. 'Just' have the different receivers respond to different codes.