Just like on TV

I worked on the motors for six or seven hours yesterday.  I'm putting them onto a wooden command center that will be in the middle of the top part of the installation.  I need to get that working with four motors running by the end of Saturday.  It's getting a bit stressful.  I've got about a month and I've still got a ton of work to do.  I'm going broke but don't have time to work at the shop because I have to finish this project.  Unfortunately, I can't pay for this project unless I work so I'm in a bit of a mess.  If you ever watch those large project shows where they have a limited time to finish you'll notice they always seem to come down to the wire.  Well, my BFA project should be a TV show.

I Get Knocked Down..... But I Get Up Again....You're Never Gonna Keep Me Down

I was working on finishing up the LED grid last night and after cutting it from the frame I came to a realization. It won't work like I expected. The tubing weighs too much for the line to hold without snapping and when pulled up on, the entire grid moves inwards to compensate, just like any other fabric would.  Lucky for me I only worked on it for a little over a week so I'm not too behind on my calendar.  I'm going back to the original plan of using a black stretchy fabric, like spandex.  It will be lighter weight and will stretch when the motors pull on it, the only downfall is that instead of moving down towards the person it will be pulled up.  I'm a bit down about all the work that ended up failing but that's what I get for experimenting I guess.

Photos of Lining

LED jig

Today I finished the construction of the LED grid jig.  It is about 13 ft by 9 ft and made of 2 in. PVC tubing.  I put screws into the tubing 6 in. apart, this is where I will tie the line to keep it taught as I hot glue the connections.  I also used a router to make small craters in a 2 x 6 x 10 piece of wood.  I cut the wood to fit inside the PVC jig  and each crater is 6 inches apart to line up with the connection points.  I will fill the crater with the hot glue to make sure there is a a solid connection between the line.  I also, bought clear plastic tubing today, 432 ft of it to be exact.  I will cut the tube into just under 6 in. pieces which should keep the line from getting out of control, the tubes will also house the LED stranded wire.  I will add an extra inch or two to the stranded LED wire to prevent strain.  Tomorrow and Sunday I have a 3D room reserved to put the grid together in so I will basically be living on campus this weekend to get it done.  I'll take documentation images and video footage to show the process of putting the thing together then I'll post it to the blog some time next week. Until tomorrow.

Setup and Motors

Last night and early this morning I worked on figuring out exactly how much wire I will need for the project.  I drew a diagram of my planned LED setup and it wasn't too bad. (150 ft of 18awg and 200ft of 22awg)  Next I started to draw the motor setup and realized that I would also need to calculate the amount of wire going from the chips to the place in the motor circuits.  This ended my hope of having 96 motors.  I only calculated the closest 20 motors to the arduino and I was already at 46 ft.  I decided to stop there and figure out a more realistic approach. After talking with Wayne, I've decided to start with just 27 motors.  They will be able to be controlled by just the Arduino Mega.  This will solve my microchip problems as well.  Once I get this setup working I may move on to more motors depending on if  it is necessary for the aesthetic.  Since I only need 27 motors now I decided to buy the more expensive motors.  The power supply will only need 6.75 amps and it won't end up costing that much more.

Motors and 595 chip

The motor schematic has worked flawlessly.  Two motors have stood out as the most efficient and cost effective.

1955669 (canon)

1810099

The second motor is less expensive than the canon and requires much fewer amps at maximum efficiency, .06 compared to .25.  It also has quite a bit less torque 14.8 g/cm compared to 34.8 g/cm.  To run the 96 motors I am planning on using it would only require 5.76 amperes at 12volts.  The canon would require 24 amps.  Although this may seem like a given, the second motor is cheaper and would require less amperes but it doesn't appear to be as high quality.  I have until Monday to make my final decision.  That is when I order the first set of parts.

I haven't had as much luck with the 595 chip.  I tried several times today to get it working with just LED's but the communications between the arduino and the chip just aren't working.  I'll try again tomorrow.

Communication between Arduinos

I knew I was going to need more than one arduino in order to control the planned 96 motors for this project but I wasn't entirely certain on how I would go about communication.  I need to work with processing to get the Kinect data to work but I also need to use arduino environment in order to send data to the 74HC595 chip. To prevent writing my own basic communication into the processing and arduino code I will try using this I2C.

I2C between Arduinos