Content Provider swisslizard Posted March 17, 2014 Content Provider Share Posted March 17, 2014 Hi folks The ledstrip controller projects direction has changed a bit. Please follow this link to the relevant post. The information you find below is outdated, but stay in place for historical reasons. All the best Tom __________________________________________________________________________________________ Hi folksAs some of you already know, I'm working on a small controller board for led strips.So far I have built different 3 prototypes, which all work well (just check out the DOF show case video to get a idea what can be done).The main components of the hardware are a fast USB bridge chip (FT245RL) and an Atmel microprocessor which does the real work. The firmware of the board is all written in assembler and is at its current state able to send approx. 50000bytes to the leds per second and there is still some headroom for optimization. This is fast enough to drive a few hundred leds. At this time the board is able to control led strips which are based in the WS2811 or the WS2812 chip (http://www.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2812.pdf).DOF has also been extended with new classes and config options to configure and control the led strips. DOF is currently able to use up to 16 of those controller boards. The board uses a simple protocol for data transmission and could be used from other software as well.Now I want to make the next step and try to get into a stage where that controller can made available for everyone. The design for the SMD version of the board is almost finished. Before I venture into SMD prototype production, I'd like to know if there is any interest amongst the cabinet builders for that controller board. One possible addition to the current board design would be to add a solid state relay which could be used to controll the power supply for the led strip. Any interest? The price for the board will likely be in the 40Euro/50USD range, based on my current estimation, but the price might be lower if there is enough demand and a larger production run can be made.Please let me know, if you would consider buying one or several controller boards, so I get a idea about the possible demand.All the bestTom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randr Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 Id be in for a few as stated in vpf thread. Relay I think would be nice Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted July 15, 2014 Author Content Provider Share Posted July 15, 2014 Small update: The mailman just passed by. Look what I've got. Still need to test them, install firmware and so on. Since I'll be of for vacation in a few days, this might take 2-3 weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basitsch Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Hello! The PCBs look very good. Can I use these Controllers for the LEDStripe effects shown at the beginning of the DOC R2 Video? Or do I need something else? And which hardware do I need for this cool MatrixBitmapAnimationEffect (special Controller? / special LED-Matrix?)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted July 17, 2014 Author Content Provider Share Posted July 17, 2014 Yes, the is the controller you need for all the ledstrip effects of DOF. It can controll a few thousand addressable rgb leds. The effects are not coming from the board, they are coming from DOF, which simply tells the board what colors to display on the leds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basitsch Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Sounds great. Are there currently any table that supports that? Or is there a tutorial on how to install and configure the hardware? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted July 18, 2014 Author Content Provider Share Posted July 18, 2014 I got handmade configs for a bunch of table, plus some more configs which I have generated using a script which replicates the flasher behaviour on the ledstrips. Still need to upload those config to the config tool, but there are so many things to do and so little time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scorpius Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 I am interessted in one of your controller. and could you tell us a little bit about the ledstrips and this onemillion led display shown in your video? perjaps you have some fotos? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted July 23, 2014 Author Content Provider Share Posted July 23, 2014 The led srrips which are supported by DOF and the controller I am developing are usign Ws2812 led chips. If you search for "WS2812 led strip" you will find plenty of sellers for those strips (also on ebay). I'm using strips with 60 leds per meter, but strips which other densities are available and can be used as well. The backboard in my cab has the usual 5 rgb flashers, but in addition there are 96 adressable leds in 3 rows. In front of those leds there is some milky plexi glass to get a better diffusion of the light. One each side of the playfields there are also led strips each having 65leds, so totaly 130 leds for both playfield sides. Since I was anyway busy installing the strips I hace also added 5 leds on both sodes behind the flipper buttons. All in all there are at the moment 236 leds installed in my cab. All which is required in terms of installation is a good powersupply (60leds consume up to 3.6a) for the strip segments and a data line which connects the strips in a daisy chain fashoin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scorpius Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 hi! Thanks for your explanations I voted for Yes and Yes (as an option). But I am not sure why I need any control of a psu? one more question: I saw a proto of your controler board. will you release a DIY perf board version everyone can solder by himself? I really like to do such things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViriiGuy Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 So.... Got a spare one of those I can buy My Cabinet needs an update and I just happen to have some addressable strip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slydog43 Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 I'm interested also Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Blashyrk Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 How is this coming along? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted December 14, 2014 Author Content Provider Share Posted December 14, 2014 Hi Sorry, for the very late answer, but real life work is keeping me increasingly busy at the moment. Apart from that, the board is doing well, but I still need to finish a few more things. Due to the business project I'm working on at the moment, I hardly find time to work on this right now. Hope to have some more time for it in a month or so. All the best Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philco67 Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Hi, are all the 236 leds daisychained together ? and individually adressable ? I've read about some colour default with long rgb strips.... and about responsiveness..... does it cope with fast paced playing ? ... and happy new year Philippe from Belgium Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jiepiewie Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 I'm currently starting with building my own pinball machine and have been reading a lot about the necessary hardware. During this search i also found the DOF description. Is it possible to buy/download/build this Direct Strip Controller? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted September 27, 2015 Author Content Provider Share Posted September 27, 2015 Hi everyoneI have been very silent about the ledstrip controller for a long time. However, a lot of work has been done in the meantime and the ledstrip support has taken a new direction. It has been a long time since I started to develop a own controller board for addressable ledstrips. At that time there were no easy to use and affordable controllers for those ledstrips. This has changed a lot over time.Today there are quite a few different strip controller solutions, some of them are much more powerfull (more RAM, ROM, higher CPU clock and more) than the board I had designed. For this reason, I have decided to stop further development of my own design and its firmware and build support for another strip controller into DOF (DOF will continue to support my old controller design). After a little research on available hard and software, I have decided to go for the Teensy 3.1/3.2. The Teensy has few important benefits when it comes to adressable ledstrips:* 64kb RAM (enough for 8strips with 1100leds each).* 256kb ROM* DMA support* OctoWS2811 lib, a high performance lib for WS2811/WS2812 based led strips which can driv 8 strip at the same time.* additional adaptor for WS2811/WS2812 is available * price for the hardware is quite low Developing a suitable firmware for the Teensy (supporting up to 88800leds) was surprisingly easy and adding a driver for the Teensy to DOF was easy as well. Here is a picture showing how the Teensy setup looks. The Teensy is the small pcb on top, the WS2811 adaptor is the bigger pcb on the below the Teensy. Connection of the strips to the Teensy is done trough notmal network cables. Connection of the Teensy to the computer is via USB. The source code of the current (alpha) firmware for the Teensy is available over at Github. A compiled firmware file is available as well. In the Wiki (also on Github) there is also a bit of information on installing the firmware, installation of ledstrips and configuration for DOF (if you find something missing in the wiki, please contribute ). All those things are work in progress and bugs are to be expected!DOF R3 which is required for the TeensyStripController is almost finished. A preview release for testing will be available soon. Apart from the the new strip controller DOF R3 will also have a few other new features like Pinballx support, a few more supported output controllers, a bunch of new effects (mainly for led strips). Last but not least I want to thank to Randr and Arngrim who have been helping with testing and with the development of the config tool. Dont miss the you tube video of Randrs ledstrip installation: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rappelbox Posted September 27, 2015 Share Posted September 27, 2015 Will be definitely implemented in my cab!!! Great work, swizzlizard [emoji106] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
majorspawn Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 is the brightness dimable via DOF or setting say to 70%, asking this as I need to consider PSU Amp requirements and fuses. If I can reduce the brightness I can reduce the power supply requirements and load Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider swisslizard Posted November 18, 2016 Author Content Provider Share Posted November 18, 2016 Yes the overall brightness can be reduced using fade curves. However, you shouldnt use a smaller psu anyway. The strips are dimmed using PWM, which means they are either fully on or fully off and therefore have the full power requirement. In addition there can alway somethings fo weong with thee config. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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