DMX Controlled LED Moving Light - TrueLight750 (Updated) (Still In-Progress)

by TomLightyear

47679

Intro: DMX Controlled LED Moving Light - TrueLight750 (Updated) (Still In-Progress)

TrueLight750 is a DMX-controlled LED moving light. The light was modeled based on High End System's SolaFrame750 and scaled down 60%. Version 1 has been completed and is able to pan, tilt, and change color, and is controlled through DMX. The majority of the light is 3D printed besides hardware and electronics. With the current version, the motors skip and the movement is not very smooth. Therefore, I have started working on Version 2 which will consist of large motors, and better motor drivers, along with a few other improvements.

STEP 1: Light Housing

SolidWorks was used to design the housing components of the light. The 3 main components are the main body, yoke, and base.

Main Body

The main moving light body is broken into 4 parts: the bottom, middle, and top components, and a shaft. The middle component contains a spot to mount the servo on one side and a spot to mount the shaft on the other. The shaft is hollow to allow wires to run through, and there are 2 spots to put screws which are used to activate the limit switch. The top component has a spot to mount the LED and an acrylic lens. All 3 parts are screwed together.

Yoke

The yoke is split up into 5 parts: the 2 yoke arms, the center pivot, and 2 covers for the outside of the yoke arms. One of the yoke arms contains a hole to screw in a shaft coupler for the motor. The other yoke arm has a channel to run the wires through, a place to mount a limit switch, and a spot to press fit the bearing. The center pivot is used to screw the 2 yoke arms together, allowing for easier assembly later on, and a shaft coupler also mounts to the center pivot. There are also 2 side panels that get screwed on, which allows easy access to the wires and motor shaft.

Base

The base is broken up into 6 parts to allow for easy printing: the 2 handles, the cover, the main base, and 2 fan holders. The handles will be attached to the main base with screws on the inside and the cover will also be screwed to the base. The main base contains spots to screw the PCBs, servo, fans, limit switch, and various electronics. The fan holders are used to secure the fans to the base.

STEP 2: Circuit Schematics

Main Circuit

The primary circuit for this project was inspired and based on Svinska013's DMX Fixture and Simulatedbog545's DMX-controlled light. The brain behind the circuit is an Atmega168 microcontroller. The microcontroller receives signals through a MAX485 which receives signals through the DMX 3-pin receptacle. The two stepper motors are each controlled by an A4988 stepper motor driver which is connected to the microcontroller. There is also an 8-DIP switch (to allow the address of the light to be changed), two limit switches (one for pan, one for tilt), a status LED, a 16MHz crystal, and the main LED connected to the microcontroller.

Power

To provide power to all the components a 15V 4.34A AC/DC power supply is used. The power supply gets input voltage through a power entry receptacle that can be plugged into the wall. Before the input to the power supply, there is a switch, a fuse, and a varistor (to protect the power supply from voltage surges). On the output of the power supply, there are two capacitors (for filtering), a TVS Diode, and an LED with a resistor to indicate if the circuit is powered or not. This 15V input into the main circuit is used to power the stepper motors. However, most of the components run on 5V, therefore a 4.7Ω 20W resistor is used to drop some of the voltage and a 5V regulator is used to ensure the output is 5V. This 5V powers the stepper motor drives, MAX485, microcontroller, fans, and main LED.

LED

The last circuit is the main LED which consists of 37 RGB addressable WS2812B-V5 LEDs. The circuit also contains a 500Ω resistor.

When designing the circuits I made use of header connectors as much as possible to make it easier to wire, assemble, and disassemble if necessary.

STEP 3: PCB Designs

Once all the electronics are tested and verified that the system functions, I plan on getting custom PCBs to compact the design and make it neater. These are the custom PCBs that I designed for the three main electrical components,

STEP 4: Assembly

Here are pictures of the final assembly.

I am currently in the process of testing the electronics and will update this page as I make more progress. Any feedback on the project, especially on the electronics as that is not my forte, would be greatly appreciated

STEP 5: Electronics (In Progress)

STEP 6: Code (In Progress)

STEP 7: Final Product (In Progress)

5 Comments

FrancescoB16 2 months ago

Hello ! Any news with the work in progress ?

FrancescoB16 19 days ago

Good news for me you've not left the project nowadays as it seems for very few enthusiasts apparently.

I'm to a very very smaller one, but same concept in mind : steppers + neopixel by DMX.

Do you think this unit m5-docs (m5stack.com) could do the work regarding the DMX interfacing ?

I'd like to friendly have a chat sometimes somewhere ... if and when you are able to, obviously.

I'm a beginner and maybe also this "target" is still too much complicated than I thought when started studying about some years ago.

Best Regards from Italy

TomLightyear 19 days ago

Sorry, it's been a while, I've taken a bit of a break on this project. I am able to move the light and control the LED using DMX. However, the movement is not smooth and the motors seem to skip. I'm not sure if this is due to the code or the hardware, but it's difficult to troubleshoot as I need to do quite a bit of disassembly to remove the microcontroller to reprogram it. So I'm working on a V2 of the light that will hopefully be easier to program. This light will also have slightly bigger stepper motors, TMC2209 drivers instead of A4988 drivers, and a higher current and voltage power supply. I'm also making some other improvements to the general construction to the light. I hope to continue working on the light soon.

stelladraco27 21 days ago

Hey there, would love to know if there is any community for this project. Something like a Discord server, a GitHub repository, etc. Love the project, would love to stay up to date and get involved!