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Arcade Collecting => Miscellaneous Arcade Talk => Topic started by: angryadmin on June 01, 2005, 09:42:34 pm

Title: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: angryadmin on June 01, 2005, 09:42:34 pm
Inspired by a group of MIT engineers( http://web.mit.edu/storborg/ddf/ ) I Think I can do this (with alot of your help), I have the tools/space/budget as well as basic electronic knowledge. I want to design/build a 10 foot by 10 foot dance floor, made up of 6 inch squares, the actual floor is easy, wood/opaque plexi, but the lighting is a different matter entirely, my first goals are not extremely ambitious, I would like to place 3 leds in each square (red/blue/green), and simply have random colors and patterns. I can dedicate a PC to controlling it if need be that is not a problem, so 1200 leds, now what? suggestions??
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: Thenasty on June 01, 2005, 09:47:03 pm
suggestion ? Get to it...
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: Q*Bert_OP on June 01, 2005, 11:14:08 pm
How much of a budget do you have?

I do stuff with stage/club/concert lighting, and I may be able to help.
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: angryadmin on June 02, 2005, 02:10:22 am
Budget is really flexible, I would like to keep it under $1000 for the electronics. But I would be willing to pay more for more functionality.
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: ErikRuud on June 02, 2005, 10:18:42 am
Those guys at MIT used custom boards with microcontrollers to control the lights, you might want to consider the Phidgets LED64 (http://www.phidgets.com) board. 
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: Dire Radiant on June 02, 2005, 11:09:29 am
Sounds like a fun project. The only thing that strikes me is that 6" is a little small for a lit dancefloor. That might be a good thing though since you'll be able to program more interesting chase patterns that way. Program patterns for a chomping pacman or a marching space invader! 8)
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: Stingray on June 02, 2005, 12:47:53 pm
the actual floor is easy, wood/opaque plexi

I'm sure you mean translucent plexi. Opaque wouldn't allow any light at all to show through. ;)

-S
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: angryadmin on June 02, 2005, 01:44:04 pm
"I'm sure you mean translucent plexi. "

Listen to what I mean and not what I say!  ;D
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: angryadmin on June 02, 2005, 02:29:30 pm
The Phidgets LED64 may be a solution, hmmm. Thinking out loud..

 I would need 19 of them, and would somehow need the program to address each group of three leds as a pixel. Then it would merely be a task of displaying images.... hmmmm, I was sure there would be an existing solution that merely needed tweaking...  but this could work...
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: Nannuu on June 02, 2005, 03:48:05 pm
Quote from the website "...best parties ever!".  LOL, at MIT I highly doubt that any party there is or ever has been the best party ever.  It is awesome looking though.
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: rchadd on June 02, 2005, 04:28:11 pm
you would need to program a plug in for your media player (such as winamp) to drive the led display patterns

hmmm i'm sure the girls at MIT have great personalities  ;)

obviously having a flashy dance floor will not improve your dance moves  ;D
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: rchadd on June 02, 2005, 04:35:11 pm
the actual floor is easy, wood/opaque plexi

I'm sure you mean translucent plexi. Opaque wouldn't allow any light at all to show through. ;)

-S

looks its like the milky white plexi like I used for lighting the cps in my pacman cocktail cab

then again it might be just a blurry photo
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: Stingray on June 02, 2005, 04:35:51 pm

obviously having a flashy dance floor will not improve your dance moves  ;D

I refuse to believe that this is true! Say it ain't so!

-S
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: quarterback on June 02, 2005, 05:10:37 pm
Everything Else - BYO Disco Dance Floor (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,35200.0.html)
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: angryadmin on June 29, 2005, 04:30:16 am
Alright how would I go about simply having the leds light with random colors? That would be the most basic operation of the floor.

NH
Title: Re: Light up disco dance floor?
Post by: StephenH on July 03, 2005, 10:26:05 pm
If you used LEDs or Lamps, and had a red, green, and blue element for each square, you could easily set it up to generate random colors, by making lights light up at different intensities depending on the color. 

All Off = Black
Red + Green = Yellow
Green + Blue = Cyan
Red + Blue = Magenta
Red + Green + Blue = White
Red at Full, plus Green at half = Orange
Red at Full + Green + Blue at 3/4 brightness = Pink
Green at full + Blue at half = Bluish Green
Red+Blue+Green at half = Grey

and so on!