Simple music light show (lpt led)

could i use an USB cord

how to connect this to the winamp..?
to show the light show music..

Hey quick question,
I believe I've set mine up correctly, but 2 of the 8 LED's are permantly lit up.

Any suggestions?

2 lights are lit up constantly. it would be approx. the middle 2. so weird. just wondering now if it might be windows 7...

Is the parallel port connector male or female? Thanks.

its female on the board, so you will need a male connector

Would it be possible to use a usb Parallel port adapter with this setup?

a usb port would require an extra piece, like a micro-controller...a Parallel port would be possible though with a similar set up (i am no expert in electricity nor I/0 ports so don't take my word as religion )

alright, i just ask because i only have usb ports on my laptop and I know there are a few companies that sell usb to 25 pin dsub parallels adapters

ahh, i would try the convertor...see what you can do

It would be more fun to create your own software . . Try using Visual Basic or Delphi.

If you're into python there's an extension called pyparallel that might help. There's a great example code here: http://pyserial.wiki.sourceforge.net/pyParallel

Couldn't agree more. I'd like to see it in plain old C though...

This is my first project so maybe this goes without saying but I was wondering what size wire is used for the connection between the lpt cable and LEDs and how do you terminate at both the port and LED splice points?

It is a good idea to put in a resistor even if the supply voltage matches the rated voltage of the LED. It is there simply to limit current, so something like a 1 Ohm resistor will protect your LED's.

The resistor is there to protect the parallel port, not the LEDs. A new motherboard is a bit more expensive than a few LEDs, and you can easily kill your parallel port (and the motherboard, if it's onboard) by drawing too much current.

where could you buy the colored plexi glass

ok so i made mine with 4 red 4 blue and it looks great. Only problem is i got a new computer used my old graphics card and harddrive in my new computer. the led's blink when starting up but when i run the LLC or any other program it doesnt run the lights. anythoughts on what to do? thnx

has anyone made one with all one color? im interested to see if it would look good or just blenf into a big.. blob. idk, i dont want alot of colors so i was thinking red blue red blue red blue ya know. but thnx man this looks great still not sure how to use the programs tho im not to goos at this stuff

It would be really cool if you made it so the LED's went on when you touched the individual plates!

How many bolts and nuts? and does size of the bilts and nuts matter?

So, with this project i can control 23 LEDs?

Yes you can control 23 LED's but this will require some other special made software to use the 8 D pins on the LPT port , and also you would need some shift register chips .

my LEDs just stay on, the program won't work. i need some help.

i want to make one of these sooo bad but my laptop doesnt have a printer port, is there any way to make this thing controllable over usb or something like that?

First of all most printers dont use serial they use paralel. they sell ethernet to serial adapters

regardless, my laptop only has usb and ethernet, im not sure if this could be controlled over ethernet

USB - Printer (lpt) port adapter - eBay
try this one.

Won't work... They require custom drivers.

I'd still give it a try - for the price in my link anyway :P

It says under windows 2000 / xp, a driver isn't needed. So it might work- for those operating systems.

worth a try

try a usb to parallel adapter...

Otherwise, just get a usb relay board... more versatile, albiet overkill, and you'd have to program your own software.

USB parallel port adapters do not work for this.

I've used a cheap USB->parallel ($2 clearance item) for a similar project which worked though I had to go through the OS to access it rather then direct to port (haven't read the code so I'm not sure what this one in particular does). I managed to fry it in an unrelated incident, but it did act as I would have expected a serial port. I assume (and being obsolete I had no real info) it couldn't provide 20mA/pin given that USB only promises 100mA total (It also supported EPP, so 100/13 < 20 kind of kicks in) and I'm sure I made some pretty adventurous choices since all hardware involved was expendable. No idea which ones work or not, but if they're available cheap/free I've seen at least one model on the planet doing this.

I've wondered a bit about if an old computer or converter could charlieplex, the extended PP stuff does support input which should, at least in theory, float pins rather then ground/5+ them. Haven't had time to mess with it and I'm running out of old hardware (perhaps predictably) to sacrifice.

(I wrote serial instead of parallel at one point. I'm appropriately ashamed, but can't actually edit it now)

Heck Larry, welcome to the club. Members include the rest of us who aren't perfect anymore. ;)

thats what i figgured...
any way to make it like audrino controllable or something?

Not meaning to disrepect the author of this instructable. Employ KISS, if all you want is a colored light display that responds to music. No doubt there are modern versions of the light organs of the 60s/70s that use LEDs

In LLE if you go into the effects folder you can open the files with notepad. Then you can copy the codde into a new notepad document in the same folder. once you edit the code, click save as and then click text documents(.txt) and select all files, type a name .LED so it will look like NAMEHERE.LED .

Will a 100 ohm resistor work for this.

Thanks for the F-bomb warning late in the first video, man! My 10-year-old sister was in the room! Look, put in whatever content you want , it's your instructable; but a disclaimer or something would be nice!

Yeah, just what i needed to have, thanks! :D

You'd want something bigger than a 1 ohm resistor for protection. Based on V=IR (Ohm's Law), for a 5V supply (LPT), a 1 ohm resistor gives you 5A of current. Something on the order of 500 Ohm (470 is commonly cited in online guides) gives 10mA, which is much more on the scope of what a parallel port handles well. Unfortunately, the spec for parallel port limits sourcing to 2.5mA per pin, so theoretically you'd need something like 2k Ohm, leaving you with an awfully dim LED.

Where did you get your specs from? When I tested mine a little while ago I got about 20 ma per pin...

According tom my online calculator, an 82 ohm resistor should work. That assumes the LEDs forward voltage is 3.5.

To the author, view this site: http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz