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Giant cylindrical color organ/VU meter for a nightclub

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mjkelly93

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Im buying into this nightclub and im looking at doing something for a wow factor in the club. There are these giant cylindrical "cages", ill post a picture, on both sides of the dance floor that we want to remove. Im thinking i can convert them into like VU towers that are round. I have some experience building arduino controlled LED columns but this would be totally different. This time im swinging for the fences.

Picture a 6' cylinder thats like ten feet tall. Im thinking wrapping like 1 foot sections of plexiglass around the cylinder horizontally so there are ten different sections of plexiglass. Im thinking using SMD 5050 lights on the edges of the plexiglass.

What id like to do is have the color of all the SMD 50/50 correspond to the frequency of the music. So when the bass hits its blue, mids are red, highs are green. Ive done this before with an MSGEQ7 and it looks amazing. I can upload a video to youtube of the columns in action if anyone wants to see it.

The question is, can i do that and have the sections of the cylinder light up from bottom to top based on intesity?
 

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something like this
FFY8JG1HKZ9ITP5.jpg
 
Alright i think i understand everything up to the mega but thats where i get a little lost. What is the LED anode drive Q1? And those other chips are ULN 2504? And in this diagram, what are you using for the lights? Are they LED strips or something else?
 
LEDs are your choice and drive current is COmmon Cathode which must drive all column oad current. ULN is good for what 1~2A ? 1.5W dissipation unless heatsunk better

Anode is MUX'd with spectral Analog Anode driver and sequenced for each column.

ONLY you can decide how to boost the current for the LED power you need. I would suggest at least 20 Watts for each column. Strip lights have to be cut rewired to access each LED. Anode and tie all Cathodes together with 16AWG magnet wire.for each strip and 26AWG for each Anode to drive from the SPECTRAL driver chip.
 
OK i actually had someone else on reddit recommend an instructable that contains that exact diagram: https://www.instructables.com/id/100-LED-10-band-Audio-Spectrum-atmega32-MSGEQ7-wit/

Are you saying i should individually addressable strips for each level of the cylinder? Im thinking SMD 5050 but each level of the cylinder only lights up based off the intensity of the audio. Im just getting started working on something like this so im a little lost at the moment.

What im thinking i need to do is marry these 2 concepts together:

#1 Telling the strip lights to blink color according to frequency:
Video:
Instructable: https://www.instructables.com/id/Blinking-LEDs-to-the-Frequency-of-Musi/?ALLSTEPS

#2 Telling individual strips to light up according to intensity:
Video:
Instructable: https://www.instructables.com/id/Led-VU-Meter-2/?ALLSTEPS
 
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Just a safety suggestion. You my want to choose polycarbonate tubes over Plexiglass. Plexiglas is brittle and when it breaks it has very sharp edges...almost like glass. Polycarbonate is much tougher.

Ken
 
Just a safety suggestion. You my want to choose polycarbonate tubes over Plexiglass. Plexiglas is brittle and when it breaks it has very sharp edges...almost like glass. Polycarbonate is much tougher.

Ken
PLexiglass is Polycarbonate, I think you are thinking of PVC which is the cheaper sheet plastic.
If you can't figure out common Cathode individual Anode driving... its beyond you.
 
Plexiglas is poly(methy methacrylate) in the US. That is not the same a polycarbonate. The refractive index of polycarbonate is slightly higher than that of Plexiglas (1.58 vs. 1.49 respectively), which would also be a small advantage in this proposed use.

John
 
Plastics are often modified for crack and impact resistance with the same trademark, but I take your point. I used 20 2x12' sheets of Polycarbonate for the roof on a Pergula and I could drive my car over the sheets without any damage. \__/- -\__/- -\__/ very tough. and UV blocker on one side. Actually I was thinking of LEXAN a polycarb.
 
Kelly it would help if you defined exactly the LED power or choice of LEDs 1st or exactly what effects you want without shortage of information
 
Plastics are often modified for crack and impact resistance with the same trademark, but I take your point. I used 20 2x12' sheets of Polycarbonate for the roof on a Pergula and I could drive my car over the sheets without any damage. \__/- -\__/- -\__/ very tough. and UV blocker on one side. Actually I was thinking of LEXAN a polycarb.
When I first started working with such plastics, polycarbonate was about 3X the cost of acrylic. Today, the prices are quite similar (McMaster 1" dia acrylic rod = $7.87/ft, polycarbonate = $8.69/ft). Both can be laser cut, but when you start drilling holes and doing other machining, polycarbonate is much easier to work with in my opinion. Plus, as Ken pointed out, it fractures differently than acrylic.

John
 
PJRC.COM has a solution for driving serial LED strips: see here.
I don't know how much you know, but this looks like the fastest way forward.
You would have to write/find/steal the color-organ code, though.

Well! I just looked at the MSGEQ7 datasheet: that color-organ code is as good as done
 
Hi.
I would explore the use of colored lasers; instead of narrow beams, shape the emitted light as annular cones.
Moving tiny lenses in place of speaker cones, could sweep heights inside of frosted plastic cylindrical cages as giant VUs. reacting to amplitude.
Each color laser can be also modulated by a particular frequency band of choice.
 
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Im going to use SMD 5050 lined up perpendicular to the edge of the plexiglass similar how i made my other columns. This is a video from my club during spanish night. Now, its not a great video but i dont have many on my phone. You can barely see the one column on the right and there is no baseline in this spanish song so they dont hit blue like they would when the base hits. Ill try and find a better video later on off my friends phone. This video right here is my example #1 above in action. Its the same code for the DJ facade, columns, and LED's around the ceiling.


There are much better videos on our instagram. Here is the link to the page if anyone wants to take a look at them too: https://instagram.com/pulse_nightclub/

And here is a link directly to the column doing its thing: https://instagram.com/p/ot3RvXSR_z/

I think i might have a gameplan though.

In my example number 1, the audio comes in to the MSGEQ7, out to the arduino, then from the arduino to 3 transistors for red, green, and blue colors which powers everything.

In example number 2, he uses one transistor as just power and runs that live wire to just the red connection so they only do red. He could have just run it to blue or green instead. Doesnt matter. Then he cuts down the voltage .6V per level of leds using a 1n914 diode across each line of transistors which gives it the equalizer look. I might have to try different diodes out to determine how much voltage i would want dropped over 10 levels.

But what im thinking is taking example number 1 and having 3 transistors for each line, so 30 transistors total. And then from example number 2, figuring out how he is dropping this voltage .6V to each line, tinkering with that until i get it perfect, and then just implementing that intentional voltage loss to each set of 3 transistors, for each line. So the signal would come out from arduino RGB and i would run that to one set of transistors just like for the columns but then id jumper that to another set of transistors using that diode to decrease the voltage.

Im not sure if this is doable because the transistors hes using in #2 differ from the transistors in #1. Other than that, i dont really see why it wont work, but, wtf do i know lol.

What do you think? Im i out of my mind? Or should i start ordering stuff and giving this a shot?
 
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Externet, what do you mean about using lasers and cones? Im really interested in what you mean there. We were discussing doing the 4th floor of the club in all lazers.
 
Hi.
I would try a speaker voice coil (no cone) with a divergent lens instead of the cone. The laser at the bottom of the cage passing trough a drilled hole in the speaker axis. The voice coil driven by DC ! relative to the (rectified) audio amplitude, changing the focal divergence. Should produce a varying cone of light hitting the in-sides of the cage wrapped in clear frosted plastic.
If simoultaneously, the laser is modulated by audio frequency or amplitude, the image could be rings of light that change in height and intensity. Then add a couple more laser colors...
The point is achieving some effect that has never been done.
 
Yeah im definitely going for something that hasnt been done before. Honestly, i havent seen anyone do the columns i made at my other place either.

Are you saying to put a laser inside a speaker instead of the cone and use the speakers voltage to power the laser? Yeah i cant say ive seen that done before. You wouldnt happen to have a video of that, would you? Id love to see that done.
 
No video. Exists only in my plans. Am gathering parts, perhaps some day... so far got red, green and purple lasers, a couple of sacrificial speakers and 1 lens.
Are you saying to put a laser inside a speaker instead of the cone and use the speakers voltage to power the laser?
Not inside exactly. Passing the laser beam trough the de-coned speaker axis and then variably expanding it with diverging lens. No audio into the voice coil. Varying DC ! into the voice coil.
 
Im reading about using the 1n4148 diode to drop voltage between my circuits but i think .7V per circuit is going to be too much. Im looking for like .4V-.5V

If i had 12V coming into a transistor, and i needed to lower than voltage by .4V to another transistor, and then by another .4V to another transistor, how can i do that?

Ya know i really wish i would have taken some electrical engineering electives in college.
 
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