I became frustrated with the light controllers out there for moving lights. Most did not do what I wanted them to do. Many of the controlllers allow you to to store scenes and shows. However, when you play them back, they don't allow you to override anything. Say I have a really cool show going, and I want to play the show but change the colors manually but use the movement settings. The controller I built allows for scenes, shows controlling the dimmer, shutter, color, X position, y position, gobo, etc. However, at any time, you can override any of the settings (such as color). Another feature is that I can have a show going on but I can choose to select one light an control it manually. Theres lots of other features that I have not found in controllers.
Anyway it was a fun project that I will continue to add features.
For any of you interested in how it was done, a brief listing is shown with some pictures.
Hardware:
Trackball from Golf Video Arcade game
Touch Screen Notebook PC
USB To DMX converter box
Piece of plywood with some holes
Software:
Most code written in C# with some additional low level raw mouse handlers and device drivers.
There's a couple main modules written:
- One constructs DMX frame and sends it via serial
- Another module reads the trackball in user input
- Another module manages the scenes and shows
The main lights that I use are Chauvet trackscan 250s.
