Re: [LCtalk] Is this a viable set up

[Amanda Steggell]

Hello Carl, Dirk, Jon (and all),

thanks for your input. Sorry for the delay in responding - I've been 
trying to process the feedback you've provided and I'm also hot-spot 
location scouting in Stavanger, Norway, where the Electromagnetic 
Fountain is planned to be exhibited in November. (To put you in the 
picture, it's been pouring with rain, I've been out all day and some 
of the night recording signals. I'm soaked to the bone, and now I'm 
trying to work in a weird guest house with thin walls where two women 
are having a passionate time together in the room next door. Its all 
a bit distracting really.)

To get to the point:

Firstly, about Carl's question of interpreting electromagnetic 
signals. I'm not exactly sure if it was you mean, but what I have 
already tried out on one fountain pump is to use the audio output 
from electromagnetic detectors I have as sound input in max/msp and 
use various interpretations/qualities of it (sound envelope, peaks, 
etc) to control the water pump speed - scaling the signal 0-255 in 
max before sending it to the lanbox sub patch/ fader.  Granted, it is 
not the most scientific way to do things, but then again, I'm a 
choreographer - to envisage how the fountain will respond to the 
elmag activity, i dance to the sounds of the signals i detect :-). 
Having said that, any alternative ideas are welcome, and apologies to 
you, Carl, if i have misunderstood your point.

The reason why I "think" I need 2 lanboxes is because I've thought 
along the lines of the method I've used before. To recap, I used 8 
push-type tubular solenoids (sorry, can't remember the voltage and 
don't have the specs here) that each opened a valve on airbrush gun 
fed with compressed air to release an aroma stored in its cup. I only 
needed one valve to be open at any one time (now I need the 
possibility of having all combinations of valves open at the same 
time). I used the 37 pin connector on the lanbox lcx to send the on/off 
signals to a specially made (not by me!) switch/junction box that 
supplied the electricity to open the valves for a certain amount of 
time (set in max/msp - all of the other sensors I used had their own 
external midi interfaces, each connected to an 8x8 usb midi interface.)

So, I figured I needed 2 lanboxes partly because I thought I could 
apply the same principle to the 15 valves of the fountain, and the 
lanbox only allows for 8 on the 37 pin plug. As yet the the voltage 
needed to open/close the valves is unknown - but as long as i can 
provide the trigger to do so, then the engineering company will 
(hopefully) provide the necessary intermediary box to send the 
correct current to the valves.

Now, about the dmx relay issue. Is it correct that a dmx relay box 
would replace using the "37 pin plug on the back of the lanbox" 
method described above? If so, I would need a relay box with 15 
outputs .....

(b.t.w Jon .... I read in the specifications for the relay box link 
you provided (http://www.dfd.com/2r5a.html) that this should not be 
used in "in applications where they will be turned on and off 
rapidly". Do you know exactly how rapidly "rapidly" is?)

And then - using one lanbox LCX I could use:

x4 788 LD+ dimmer packs for the 16 lights
x1 CLS 4002 Digital DMX dimmer - (alternatively x1 788 LD+ dimmer 
pack?) for dynamic control of the 4 pumps
- a dmx relay box with 15 outputs for individually and simultaneously 
opening/closing (on/off) 15 fountain valves
- a switch/relay box to send the right current to the valves 
depending on the current requirement.

If so, does the order of the devices in the daisy chain matter? I 
suspect not, but I'm not entirely sure.

And .....

About terminators. I think from what I've read that the terminator 
would plug into the dmx output of the last device in the chain with a 
dmx cable. Is that correct?

wbw

Amanda


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