Hello,
In 2008, I designed and built a simple light box for use at party's and discos. It consists of a 9 x 8 array of E10 MES bulb holders and 12V LEDs, wired in 3 series circuits. The three channels are fed from bridge rectifiers, although the LEDs state they can operate of either AC or DC without any problems. To control the three channels, I used an old Christmas lights sequencer. This worked fine for quite some time and then stopped working, so I replaced it with another of the same controllers, but the time has come to give it an upgrade... sound to light.
When I've searched online for sound to light circuits, I've found several options including:
So I have a few questions...
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards
Edward Holmes
In 2008, I designed and built a simple light box for use at party's and discos. It consists of a 9 x 8 array of E10 MES bulb holders and 12V LEDs, wired in 3 series circuits. The three channels are fed from bridge rectifiers, although the LEDs state they can operate of either AC or DC without any problems. To control the three channels, I used an old Christmas lights sequencer. This worked fine for quite some time and then stopped working, so I replaced it with another of the same controllers, but the time has come to give it an upgrade... sound to light.
When I've searched online for sound to light circuits, I've found several options including:
So I have a few questions...
- Which do you think would be most suitable? They all have three channels, but are of varying complexity.
- As far as I can make out, they all require a wired input and ideally I'd like to use a built in microphone to control it. I did think about using a piezo element, but after a little research, I realised that they are ideally suited as a contact microphone, e.g. for an acoustic guitar pickup.
How would I be able to adapt any of the circuits above to switch mains? I was originally thinking along the lines of a driver and a relay, but decided this wouldn't be suitable because it would likely wear out after little use. Other ideas included using an optocoupler or maybe a solid state relay?- When there is no music, or the level is too low to pick up, the light box is going to be very dull... this led me to the idea of maybe included a simple sequencer comprising of a 555 and 4017 or maybe a 4060. This leads me to the question of whether I should have it automatically switch between sound to light and sequencer, or if I should have a switch and be able to operate it manually?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards
Edward Holmes
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