adccommunitymod (AutomationDirect) asked a question.
Created Date: November 26,2007
Created By: elevmike
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I would presume that AD's Christmas light show is using a PLC to control the lights?? Can anyone from AD tell us about the hardware and general premis of the program? I'm attempting to do this with a DL06 outputing to 16 strings, (about 1200 lamps total). So I picked up a cheap ($10.00) 3 octave keyboard from K-Mart. I took the keyboard apart and wired the keys into the PLC inputs. The object is to play the keyboard and the PLC will record my keystrokes and play it back in time with the music. I figured I could record about 1800 16 bit images for about 15 minutes of play. This may sound great, but apparantly I'm not so musicly talanted... Looking for ideas on a better way.. Regards, Mike
Created Date: November 26,2007
Created by: Kristjan H
You might find some hints or useful links in this thread
http://forum1.automationdirect.com/board/Forum1/HTML/002316.html
Created Date: November 28,2007
Created by: rlp122
I tried this once. It blew quickly out of hand. The programming was a nightmare and the syncing to the music almost impossible.
I ended up finding a controller that was easy to program and use from Light-O-Rama . Even though it costs a bit of money I figured I would come out ahead in the long run with a lot less headaches.
Created Date: November 28,2007
Created by: chris.zeman
I did something similar for our annual Halloween event. We have 4 animated skeletons in a "band ". They each have an instrument and play in sync to a sound track. I had to figure out approximately how long it took for for the limbs to travel so the overall effect would look good. Then I went through the sound track and entered the times each event (drum strikes, trumpet blows, etc) was supposed to happen. I used all these values in the program to determine at what point the solenoid valves should be turned on.
The animation turned out really well. E-Mail me at chris n9xcr.com, Mike, and I'll e-mail you the program if you like.
Chris
Created Date: November 30,2007
Created by: elevmike
Chris,
I have the program pretty much working. Since my 1st post, I figured that I can actually get 3649 16 bit images. I 've also found that I can tweek my "recording " using Data View...
The program stores the image and time in alternating Vmem words.
(Image) V1200, 0000010101011100
(time) V1201, 0500
and so on...
The timer is a fast timer, (99.99) seconds.
Each time the image changes the image and time are recorded in the next two Vmem Words.
On playback, each time the timer times out, the program zeros the timer and skips to the next two vmems for a new image and time.
Ok that said, sometimes I'm not getting the image I see in Data View.
For saving the image I'm using:
LDF, X0, K16
OUT, P400 (pointer to next Vmem)
For playback I'm using:
LD, P401 (another pointer)
OUTF, Y0, K16.
If I display the saved image in DataView in Binary, and change it, I'm not getting the expected outputs??
Any Ideas???
Created Date: December 02,2007
Created by: elevmike
As it turns out I had miss-typed my data view Vmems.. What come in usually effects what goes out.....That problem solved..
Next issue:
Only on displaying the 13th image in the stack, the program seems to pause for 1/2 second or so. So if all the times are set to .010 seconds, when in playback, the 13th image displays slightly longer then the other images. The image display timer is a TMRF. Not sure why??
Created Date: December 03,2007
Created by: Tech Guy
Sounds like a BIN/BCD issue. This is indicative of how a data typing issue with BIN/BCD behaves.
Created Date: December 03,2007
Created by: elevmike
Originally posted by Tech Guy:
Sounds like a BIN/BCD issue. This is indicative of how a data typing issue with BIN/BCD behaves.
Not sure what your refering to??? The timer presets are in BCD so if I'm using a fast timer with the value of 10 that should be 10ms??
So I have all the times set to 10ms and when it comes to this particular Vmem, its obivious there a longer interval the others?? Something must be causing the program scan to become extended when it's reading these particular values..
I wish I could post the program...
Created Date: December 04,2007
Created by: elevmike
Ok I figured out that I had a double entry thus causing the appearance of a delay...
Created Date: January 11,2008
Created by: Yo-Dude
From one elevator guy to another http://forum1.automationdirect.com/board/smile.gif
I tried the Xmas light show thing this year. I wrote everthing in Visual Basic and tied it to a rack consisting of a D-250 CPU and 115VAC triac outputs. I had to hand assign each output using BCD words and converting them to binary at the PLC due to timing issues and the fact I was sending over the RS-232 comm port. The whole show lasted over 4-minutes and I used 35 output channels. I probably had 50 hours of programing time and 3,000 lines of code. Not the way to do it...
I'm not sure how "AD " did theirs. Have fun!
Created Date: January 15,2008
Created by: elevmike
Yo-Dude,
I have 84 total instructions, 16 outputs, and can display as much as 3700 different patterns each with it's unique time.
The program simply displays a binary pattern and time reference stored in alternating memory locations, incrementing from one to the next via pointers for the image and time.
I figured I could put on a nice show for about 15 minutes. I picked 5 tunes
1) Little Drummer Boy by Joan Jett
2) So this is Christmas by John Lennon
3) Ave Maria by Joan Baez
4) What a Wonderful Word, by Luis Armstrong
5) Winter Wonderland by Darline Love
The problem with this, or any light controller, is the time required to program the actual show. Hours of programming for seconds of showtime..
I never got a chance to actually put up the display due to personal time constrants. However I now have 11 months to finish in time for next year...