Friday, November 30, 2012

Introducing LightingPi




As a companion to my pixelPi software and I've started work on an output device which works with OLA (Open Lighting Architecture).  This allows the Raspberry Pi to be use to control; servos; dimmers; relays and pixels (via pixelPi) all controlled over standardized lighting/prop control protocols supported by OLA.  This would essentially be a configurable node which drives hardware and can be controlled with Artnet; E1.31; ESP Net; Pathport; Sandnet; Shownet.

https://github.com/LightingPi/lightingPi

Features:

  • Control strings of LED pixels with a raspberry Pi
  • Control strings of analog RGB LED strings (up to 16 channels per PWM board)
  • Control Incandessent lighting via SSR boards (work in progress)
  • Control servo position
  • Control of all fixtures provided over all major lighting protocols Artnet / E1.31/ OSC ...via OLA

Overview:

DMX based protocols are quite flexible.  The LightingPi software is a client which allows control of a large variety of light fixtures attached to the Raspberry Pi



Hardware:

(1) RaspberryPi
(2) PWM Hardware (Needed for Analog RGB Pixels and Servos)
(3) Something to play with (Servo motor; LED strips; LED pixels, SSRs)

Wiring Diagram:


No rocket science here:
Dimmer and RGB analog control provided by an I2C PWM generator
Led Pixel support provided by SPI bus directly on the raspberry pi


RGB LED strings driven by passing the PWM output to FET drivers (in the form of "RGB String Amplifiers cheaply available from ebay)

Servos are directly driven from the PWM IC

SSRs for dimmers are directly driven from PWM IC

Software:

lightingPi:

Grab the latest version here: https://github.com/scottjgibson/lightingPi

Configuring the peripherals:

Have a look at config.ini; its pretty self explanitory

OLA:

Install via apt; sudo apt-get install ola





Tuesday, November 27, 2012