Disco Dance Floor

[hicksynet]

Hi me and a mate want to build a disco dance floor and we are just taking down ideas and finding out the best way to do it.

The dance floor will look something like this.

YouTube - MIT 1e Disco Dance Floor - Bad Ideas Ball Party

But alot smaller and not as advanced, plus we are on a very tight budget and i mean tight.

We was looking at building something like AVR8515

**broken link removed**

or
SparkFun Electronics

I was also looking into controlling it by a parallel port but we would be restricted by how many outputs it has.(limiting how many leds we can have)

Another thing i would like to do is make it real time like controlled by a computer or even sound, but we are just looking at getting the basics done first and deciding what way is the best.

If you had any ideas at all that would be great

 

[philba]

To expand your output pins, look into shift registers. 74hc595 is a good one. Very cheap, controlled via 3 pins and you can daisy-chain them to get effectively unlimited output in units of 8. You want 96 outputs? Chain 12 '595s. It only takes 3 pins - total. Driving them is pretty simple. Many chips has SPI which can be used to drive them or you can do it in sw.

Marry each '595 to a ULN2803 and you can drive a fair amount of current.

 

[hicksynet]

Thanks for your suggestion sounds like a good idea. one thing, I'm not an engineer or anything so would you know of any good sites and diagrams to help me build the circuit its just i have really no idea where to start.

Also using the 74HC595 will it be only PC controlled or will it also be able to use pre-programed, and if so how many patterns do u think we will be able to hold on there. maybe in the future when i want to make it controlled by patterns i can add a micro controller to the circuit.

I think we are going for a 8x8 dance floor with 2 or 3 leds under each so we might need 128 outputs or more.

 

[philba]

google is your friend - lots of circuits come up for "74HC595 circuits".

the '595 is essentially a port expander for a microcontroller. Look at this page **broken link removed** (first hit on the above search).

edit: in addition, look at this article https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2008/05/digio.pdf it also shows how to drive heavier loads with the ULN280x devices. it's a good read.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

How large to you hope to build your dance floor and what's your budget? What sort of lights do you plan to use?

 

[hicksynet]

we are thinking a 8x8 its not going to be really big, its only for small partys and stuff. we want at least 2 superbright led's under each tile 3 would be better but see how much its all going to cost, max we would like to spend is $100aud.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Well just the construction materials will probably cost more than $100 AU, unless it's really really small. It has to withstand people jumping up and down on it, large enough for more than one person.

 

[TiagoSilva]

i saw something like this project of yours some time ago in MSDN News (**broken link removed**), well, i will only give you some ideas...

To use on the floor grid squares try using 5mm (at least, and depending on the area) sheets of translucid Nylon (Nylon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) of any type (Nylon) or you may also consider using Polymethyl Methacrylate (Plastic Type) (Acrylic glass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), keep in mind that if you leave no room below theese sheets their integrity will be enhanced by the floor structure itself !

I would recommend that you use both, Nylatron as the top and most abrasive resistant layer and the Polymethyl Methacrylate layer below (to provide light expansion) with the LEDs mounted on. (Beware of broken legs with Nylatron, use an less lubrificated Nylon if no broken legs are required !)

As the grid support you could use cheap Aluminium tubes or if your budget is really tight, use wood bars...

For the electronics part, you could use the Serial Port with and TTL 8Bit common Shift Register and an RS-232 level converter like the MAX232... (or an FTDI232 chip to provide USB to Serial)

For the software side use Visual Studio .Net (i personally use C#,... C++) try Basic if you have no programming experiênce... .Net offers an easy SerialPort interface component, very easy to use, just drag and click it on the IDE (visual studio) to apply some code to the event...

The Shift-Registers also allow you to build an chain of modules and i guess this way you can choose how mutch you can spend , also instead of the MAX232, since you only need the Tx of the SerialPort you could use an simple transistor and 2 resistors to pulldown a little the 10volts that came from the RS-232.


Well, i hope i've have given some ideas to you !
Try not to burn down the house !

 

[hicksynet]

well my granddad has a lot of the materials for the actual frame for the dance floor so we are going to build it out of wood and use a lexen/acrylic so that bit is covered its just all down to the electronics of the project and wondering what will be best for us.

we was just talking last night, and was thinking that having it be able to be preprogramed would be good for places we wont have a laptop. maybe a micro controller as as well as someting like the 74hc595 if it wouldnt be to hard.

also is power going to be a problem how big of a power supply will i need should i split it half for the power?

 

[shokjok]

Are there any closed dance facilities that will sell you their equipment? You could also try stringed Christmas lights tied to triacs or relays, and a sound chaser if there is a Dick Smith Electronics store nearby - are they still around? Maybe a special effects studio for ideas?

 

[Hank Fletcher]

You know what could make this project super-cool? I know there are some capacitance-touch ICs out there for less than $3 each. They work through touch, but often are also designed to respond through proximity and a protective surface, like 1/4" glass. With one IC for each of the eight panels, you could employ a Dance-Dance-Revolution aspect to your design: flashing the panels in-sync with the audio, or whatever, but changing some parameter (like colour value) when someone steps on a panel. Could make for some interesting moves on the dance floor!

I don't know to what degree the ICs would respond to someone standing on/near them with shoes. Still, for the price it might be worth finding out. Don't worry about needing just a thin surface over the IC - it only needs to be thin over the IC, meaning you could drill a recess into the bottom of your dance surface just to have the IC close enough to respond to someone's presence.