“My kids are passioned for riding unicycle. Once the idea was born to add lights for a show event. Adding some lights would be already cool but inspired by other lightshows, the lights should be synchronized with the music. _ _It was quite an adeventure but a great learning experience dealing with new items like LiPo, DMX, EL-wire, LED stripes, RF modules etc.
The very first thought was to program everything into the control unit of one stripe.
I have disregarded this because of two reasons:
1) With three actors (later will be 5), you are having 3x3=9 control units. For any update, you have update all boards. During the show, you need to find a way to sync the modules.
2) My main argument for using one sender is not a technical one:The kids should be able to create and update the show without me. Just imagine how many tweaks are done until the choreography is finished
The current architecture has bascially three elements:
- Windows Notebook with Vixen 3
- Sender : standard wireless router
- Receiver : ESP8266 + MOSFET driver + LED Stripes + LiPo 2S
The first attempt was based on arduino Nano and NRF24. After some events, I had to overcome some limitations and moved to ESP8266 as this providing much more flexibility.”