First – and finally! – there’s an enormous batch of node strings en route to our shop.  The factory ended up being about 10 days late with the delivery, but we’re super excited.  This shipment contains 300+ strings of 42 nodes.  About 2/3 are spoken for already, and the factory is making several hundred more strings in addition.

If you’ve placed an order in the past few weeks, this is the shipment we’re waiting for.

225 pounds worth.

Next, a quick preview of the soon-to-be-released E16 Ethernet Node Controller.

E16 Ethernet Node Controller

• Receives Art-Net 2.0 and (coming soon) E1.31 control data.
• Input frame rate of up to 44 Hz
• Drives 16 strings of 42 nodes, using between 1 and 4 universes of data
• Simple web-based configuration wizard.  Node count, universe number, string start address and more can be set on a per-string basis.
• Matching 5V / 50A power supply takes up less counter space (!) than the E16 controller itself.
• Fuse per output for sleep-at-night safety.
• Built-in test patterns for confirming wiring & string assignments, no ethernet connection required.

Below are a couple screen shots taken from the web-based configurator.

I’ve been playing with an early prototype E16 controller for the past few days and can’t stop smiling.  It’s amazing.

More soon!

-JEC

First clip comes from mrpackethead in New Zealand, who used attached 60 1-meter RGB tubes to a section of motorized truss.  These tubes are available for hire, by the way.

The track is called “Everybody” by PlanetShakers.. They were actually doing that song, but the audio on my camera was terrible, so I used the original.

It’s downloadable from iTunes, that’s where I got it from.

-mrpackethead

Second clips is a 47.5″ star with 136 RGB nodes attached.  Video shot in here in our shop.

For the curious, this is an early prototype of a system which will be distributed by Animated Lighting.  Check with them for pricing, availability and more details.

P.S.   Video questions:  This was shot with a Nikon point & shoot camera, tripod mounted, autofocus off.  The camera was perfectly still during recording.  But, the captured image hops all over the place.  No idea why, and it drives me crazy.

It only seems to occur in high-contrast video clips.  Daylight shooting works as expected.

Camera glitch?  Anyone have an idea?

A few weeks ago, we sent the friendly folks at Light Show Pro a T3 controller and 4 strings of RGB nodes.  They and some of their customers wondered if our controllers and nodes were compatible with the new RGB toolkit they’d designed.

Turns out, they are…

See below for the video clips.  Fun software, very reasonable price.

Just a quick note before the weekend…  On Monday, August 9, we’ll publish a whole batch of documents, including:

• Source code for driving last year’s 5 bit nodes and this year’s 8 bit nodes (the control protocol is quite different) based on DMX input.
• Schematics for a simple 4-string driver system.
• Eagle & gerber files for a known-good PCB layout.
• PCBs from the shop shelf – at least 50 pieces – will be available for a nominal fee.

All information will be released under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial license.

Stay tuned!

We’re thrilled to announce that 8-bit DMX-driven RGB nodes and controllers are now available for pre-order.

Click here for more detail.

Thanks!

(Note also that mrpackethead is working on some amazing demo videos to post this weekend.  You’ll see video, graphics & text on a grid of nodes, plus a bunch of other neat effects.)

Enter your name and email address in the top right corner of this page for instant updates when new content is added.

This clip comes from New Zealand, courtesty mrpackethead & co.

It’s 40 of the RGB Tubes, driven by DMX and some pixel-mapping software they ginned up.

More details, plus information about the release of the strings & controllers, is coming very soon.  Thanks, everyone, for your patience through this R&D phase.  We’re confident that you’ll be thrilled with the result.

It took a couple days to organize his kit (dayjob!), but here’s his string of the new 2010 RGB nodes flashing merrily away.

His toolchain is Madrix (running in a virtual Windows machine on a Mac, natch) –> Enttec USB Pro –> DMX / Pixel Bridge I designed –> 50 Nodes.

Video courtesy an EOS 7D SLR.

Yesterday I received my sample string from mrpackethead in New Zealand.  The factory made us two test strings of 50 nodes each. Hooray for DHL and 2 day (!) around-the-world service.  Hooray also for Chinese New Year being over.  It seems like most of the country is shut down for 2 weeks in February.

Spent a few hours figuring out the protocol (this new 8 bit controller speaks a somewhat different language than last year’s 5-bit system).  Once I could drive the nodes discretely and successfully, I wrote some quick microcontroller code for a DMX bridge.

Here they are, lounging happily in a bowl of tap water.  All we need is a fish.

Onward!

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Unbelievable.

The interest this project grown far beyond anything we ever imagined.

When we started out we had a few ideas about what we wanted to achieve.  We are pleased we’ve got over our own ‘line’, and are now able to ramp things up & make the technology available to everyone else.

In the process, we’ve been asked a thousand questions concerning ‘when’ and ‘how much?’

So here goes.

During 2009, we spent a lot of time (and money) researching and developing various design ideas. Where we are today is a long way down the track from the original classic pixels first released in 2005.  Our goal in 2009 was to find an affordable, reliable RGB node, suitable for large scale deployments. Getting a working design is only part of the challenge.  We’ve looked at various production options as well.

The difference in build quality between factories is significant!  Component choice is also important: inferior parts will run for a few days  or weeks, then completely or partially fail.

Sometimes cheap parts come at  a very high overall price.

Our testing will continue on some new products this year as well, but the new nodes that we have now, are performing well.

We’ve now invested a significant amount time and money ensuring our nodes will be reliable.  R&D is like that – lots and lots of sunk costs, destructive field testing, and often very little apparent result.

The nature of the Internet (and hardware hackers in general) almost certainly guarantees that someone else will find and start to sell an apparently similar product. There’s not much we can do to stop that.  And frankly, we’re not interested in trying.

Competing solely on price only leads to disappointment and frustration for all parties, and it’s not a game we’re interested in playing.

Know also that components which appear identical on a computer screen may behave in a radically different way in real life.

What we will offer – on absolutely everything that leaves the shop –  is a 100% money-back, no-questions-asked, we’ll-be-devastated-if-your-system-doesn’t-run-perfectly guarantee of support and service.  Each system will ship with a hearty helping of peace of mind.

That’s the value we’re adding to the process, and we think it’s significant.

To stay informed, just enter your name and email address in the top right corner of this page.  You’ll be the first on your block to receive  project updates.

We have got a number of other products now ready for release in 2010.  We’ve thought long and hard about how to proceed.  Our goal is to offer something useful to both the ‘DIY’ crowd and those seeking a complete turnkey solution.

Led Wall Washers and Tubes

We have some very bright tubes and wall washers that we have almost finished testing.  More details will be released as they become available.

Thanks!

Again, to stay updated on the project, just enter your name and email address in the upper right corner of this page.

Questions?  Comments?  Want to reserve your bits right now?  Send a quick email to ‘john AT response-box.com.’  We’d love to hear from you.

Warmest regards,

JEC & mrpackethead

Finally!

A couple days ago I rented a Canon EOS 7D + 28-70 F/2.8L lens, which I used to capture some footage of the house on a frozen and windy night.

The camera can shoot full-on HD video – 1080p at 30 fps.  5 minutes of footage fills a 4 GB flash card.  It’s compressed quite a bit by Youtube, but the actual color rendition is as close as I’ve ever seen.  Audio is the same as you’d hear if you visited in person.

This next picture is the physical incarnation of an idea my wife had.  She wanted snowflakes on the house.  Lots of ‘em.

So we sketched up a family of flakes in the CAD program, then emailed the DXF files to the metal shop that’s just up the road.  The shop tightly arrayed the flakes on a 4′ x 10′ piece of aluminum stock, then cut them out on the laser table.

The large flake  shown here measures 23″ from tip to top and contains 83 RGB nodes on ~ 1.5″ centers.  83 nodes equals 249 channels of DMX and/or Art-Net.  So 2 per universe.

Since we left ‘practical’ behind several months ago, such a massive channel count poses no problem at all.

Snowflake, fully loaded & waiting for installation.

The video clip below shows it running a simple – yet frantic – test pattern.  It’s really, really bright.

With any luck, we’ll have a whole flock of these mounted on the house after Christmas.  They’ll run through January & hopefully counteract the cold grey winter.

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Thanks!