Interface Strobe Light with PC.. any thoughts??

[JK99]

Hey guys.

I recently built a strobe light from one of those electronic store kits to use with the video/mp3 jukebox side of my cabinet.

I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how I could interface it with a PC and custom write software to control when the strobe is turned on and off.

The jukebox software I use is written in VB.

I was thinking more along the lines of making something that will 'flick' on the power to the strobe when there is a trigger received from the PC. Say via the COM port.

Any help, suggestions, thoughts.. would be very much appreciated.

Cheers guys.

JK

[BobA]

The serial port takes a bit of electronics to decode an output bit stream.  On the other hand the parallel port needs a minimal amount of hardware to interface to.  Here is a link to info on interfacing to the parallel port.  There are many other links re parallel port interfacing if you use a search engine.

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/par/

BobA

[JK99]

Thanks mate

Nice info on the website

In particular this link

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sebdehne/pp_powerSwitch/switch.html

Would do exactly what I need.

I'd be wanting to control the on/off process using VB. Does anyone have methods of controlling the above device using VB?

Cheers

JK

[Howard_Casto]

I'm working on something.... be patient  

[JK99]

Sweet. I'd be interested to see what ya come up with.

I bought all the bits and have built what I think will work. Yet to test. Still have the 240V side of things to do from the relay, that shouldn't be too hard, assuming I dont fry ---my bottom---.

I also managed to get the necessary stuff to intergrate it with the video jukebox so if all goes well people will be strobing to the doof doof.

[StephenH]

If you could figure out a way, via serial or parallel, to control an output (it will involve special wiring and coding), then use a relay or triac circuit to control the light (you will need to use the +5V (or +3.3V) output of the computer, to drive something that can switch higher voltage (probably 120V or more), which powers the strobe.