Light O Rama Fountain Controller

I am planning on using a new Light O Rama control board and software to control my laminar fountains. In my communications with the company they are hand building a limited number of units within the next 2-3 months.
http://www.lightorama.com/Documents/MLC-100.pdf
Theron

Hi, Wow what a largely thing, How do you programm this board? Expensive? I gess yes.

The company has great software that I currently use to control 188 channels of christmas light on the outside of my home. The software allows, on, off, fade up, fade down, twinkle, and shimmer functions, all timed to music I select. Light O Rama offers a free download of their software (it just won't actually control any of their boards until you purchase it) that will give you an idea of how it functions.
http://www.lightorama.com/products.html

The new fountain card is capable of controlling the output volume of three pumps and six channels of high power LEDs. Each of the six LED channels will handle upto 3 high power LED's.

I anticipate the price of the board to be around $500 US so it's not a cheap do-it-yourself type of fixture but it should be easily incorporated into my display. However, I will also have to use one of my 16 channel light control boards to control the "cutting" and "tapping" functions of the laminar fountains as well as any additional lighting requirements.

All this being said, I am still interested in understanding more about the control set-up you are using.

500$ is not that much, for a real cool system like this one, software is great! looks easy to program.

My setup i use is a full DIY Board. I start from scratch to made the PCB and Programming on the 4 Atmel mega 8 Microcontrollers. On the internet i found help in Robotic Forums. 1Chip is for the RGB, 1 for the IR-Remote and Light and Wind, 1 for the Pump control, 1 for the Cutter and Knocker. Alls chips are communicating to each other. Also i have connected a Pump control board to set high and length of my laminar stream. Basic programming was a little hard to learn and understand ( i had no idea 1 1/2 years ago), but once you got it, its easy. I work with Bascom, a basic compiler and easy to use. Schematics with Eagle, a Free layout software. The cool thing is, i can do what i want with this system, no limitation and expandable. And i had the fun of made all with my hands. *BIG SMILE* But the time you need is enormous. But you learn such a lot, for your next projects.

Mario

I'm learning mlab right now to program a jumping pattern for a solenoid cutter --the fact that the Light O Rama board can also control pump motors is really attractive, since my eventual goal is a dancing laminar bell. I'm just learning know how to amplify current so it's strong enough to operate an actuator!

I have a USB relay card.. (80$) !

And it can be controlled by a simple and nice software on the computer
They sells from 4 - 16 relays !

I have 16 relays, my plan was to use 4 to solenoid, and the rest to control LED

gryphern wrote:I'm learning mlab right now to program a jumping pattern for a solenoid cutter --the fact that the Light O Rama board can also control pump motors is really attractive, since my eventual goal is a dancing laminar bell. I'm just learning know how to amplify current so it's strong enough to operate an actuator!

I'm working on the same stuff. I'm learning about controlling motors, and solenoids etc. It's pretty awesome, but it takes a while. If you ever need have some questions let me know.

I'm using PIC microcontrollers, and I've been using a Proton+ development suite. It's really nice and simple, but really powerful.

John wrote:

gryphern wrote:I'm learning mlab right now to program a jumping pattern for a solenoid cutter --the fact that the Light O Rama board can also control pump motors is really attractive, since my eventual goal is a dancing laminar bell. I'm just learning know how to amplify current so it's strong enough to operate an actuator!

I'm working on the same stuff. I'm learning about controlling motors, and solenoids etc. It's pretty awesome, but it takes a while. If you ever need have some questions let me know.

I'm using PIC microcontrollers, and I've been using a Proton+ development suite. It's really nice and simple, but really powerful.

Gryphern, don't understand this wrong, your Light O Rama board is great! very useful.
John, i really like the way you do it, all handmade, a real hardcore mad scientist!

I know, not all of us have the will to make the controllers by them self, but with a little engagement, everything is possible, internet and this Forum. I knew nothing about Nozzles and Microcontrollers when i started one year ago, and today i have a full working system, all 100% handmade, learned all from the web ...

I just want to say, believe in you, try it guys, you can do it!
This is a Picture of my controller board, works very nice.