HolidayCoro Candy Canes Part 1
HOW WE DID IT
Make sure you watch David's video on building the candy cane. NOTE: The video shows you how to build the candy canes using the square dumb nodes. I will make a couple of suggestions here that I hope will help you out. I will center on using DMX control since DMX will give you the most bang for your buck as far as channels and cost. There are other ways to control the lights in this project.
1. If you use dumb nodes, you will need some type of controller, for example a HolidayCoro 3-channel DMX controller. What you will get is a candy cane that you can control with full color RGB (Red/Green/Blue) but every node (all 16) will always be the same colors. So you end up with a solid color, but segmented, candy cane. Nothing wrong with that if that is what you want!
2. You could add, for example, a second HolidayCoro 3-channel DMX controller and wire every other node to the corresponding controller. For example node 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15 go to controller 1 and node 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16 go to controller 2. This will allow you create a true candy cane effect such as a red/white, green.white,blue/white cane or any combination of striping that you can imagine.
3. The third idea is to use smart nodes or pixels. Pixels have a chip in them that allow you to address and control the RGB content of each pixel seperately. Explaining pixels is beyond this how-to and there are a lot of references to pixels all over the Christmas forums. See our LINKS page for references. The pixels give you unlimited control of how your candy cane(s) can be displayed. Your imagination is the limiting factor. This is the path that we chose for this project.
Before we get started, let me take a moment to explain a few things I did wrong. These types of pixels have a chip in them that allows you to address and program each module individually. Since we have 8 CoroCanes I needed to keep the pixel string intact from one cane to the next. Basically, in to cane 1, out of cane 1, in to cane 2, out of cane2..... out of cane 7 in to cane 8. This allows total control of all 128 pixels in the project. They can be accessed in ANY order at any time, meaning I can turn pixel 1, cane 1 on to red while turning pixel 16 in cane 8 to blue. LIMITLESS possibilities. You can chase vertically up each cane then have each cane chase to the next. You can chase horizontally ACROSS the canes (a sweeping motion of 1 to 16 pixels).. again, do you see the unlimited possibilites?
So where I messed up was I forgot to keep the sequential pixel chain alive from one cane to the next. You will see in the How-To photos how I solved the issue. You may be a pixel expert and wouldnt dream of making this mistake, but you may be a novice (like me) and not realize it right off the bat. So here is Part 1 of the How-To.
Also look for the test video at the end of this page. It will give you an idea of what the CoroCane looks like and VERY BASIC idea of what it can do when loaded up with pixels.
Make sure you watch David's video on building the candy cane. NOTE: The video shows you how to build the candy canes using the square dumb nodes. I will make a couple of suggestions here that I hope will help you out. I will center on using DMX control since DMX will give you the most bang for your buck as far as channels and cost. There are other ways to control the lights in this project.
1. If you use dumb nodes, you will need some type of controller, for example a HolidayCoro 3-channel DMX controller. What you will get is a candy cane that you can control with full color RGB (Red/Green/Blue) but every node (all 16) will always be the same colors. So you end up with a solid color, but segmented, candy cane. Nothing wrong with that if that is what you want!
2. You could add, for example, a second HolidayCoro 3-channel DMX controller and wire every other node to the corresponding controller. For example node 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15 go to controller 1 and node 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16 go to controller 2. This will allow you create a true candy cane effect such as a red/white, green.white,blue/white cane or any combination of striping that you can imagine.
3. The third idea is to use smart nodes or pixels. Pixels have a chip in them that allow you to address and control the RGB content of each pixel seperately. Explaining pixels is beyond this how-to and there are a lot of references to pixels all over the Christmas forums. See our LINKS page for references. The pixels give you unlimited control of how your candy cane(s) can be displayed. Your imagination is the limiting factor. This is the path that we chose for this project.
Before we get started, let me take a moment to explain a few things I did wrong. These types of pixels have a chip in them that allows you to address and program each module individually. Since we have 8 CoroCanes I needed to keep the pixel string intact from one cane to the next. Basically, in to cane 1, out of cane 1, in to cane 2, out of cane2..... out of cane 7 in to cane 8. This allows total control of all 128 pixels in the project. They can be accessed in ANY order at any time, meaning I can turn pixel 1, cane 1 on to red while turning pixel 16 in cane 8 to blue. LIMITLESS possibilities. You can chase vertically up each cane then have each cane chase to the next. You can chase horizontally ACROSS the canes (a sweeping motion of 1 to 16 pixels).. again, do you see the unlimited possibilites?
So where I messed up was I forgot to keep the sequential pixel chain alive from one cane to the next. You will see in the How-To photos how I solved the issue. You may be a pixel expert and wouldnt dream of making this mistake, but you may be a novice (like me) and not realize it right off the bat. So here is Part 1 of the How-To.
Also look for the test video at the end of this page. It will give you an idea of what the CoroCane looks like and VERY BASIC idea of what it can do when loaded up with pixels.
In order to help this page load easier for everyone, this concludes PART 1 of the CoroCane buildup. At this point we are waiting for the 4-Pin waterproof connectors from China so the project is on hold. However, I'm sure everyone is excited to see what the CoroCane looks like when using pixels. I created a short little sequence using LOR SuperStar to give you a SMALL idea of what to expect.
Pixel Test from Bob Moody on Vimeo.