Beacon4
From Hackstrich
Beacon4 will be the fourth incarnation of the flagpole beacon, for Burning Man 2012. This year the plan is to take a different approach, and light the entire scaffold tower rather than just a beacon on top of the flagpole.
Contents
Project Status
- 2012-04-24: Permission received!
- 2012-04-23: Requested permission from NeonBunny to attach LEDs to the tower.
- 2012-04-22: Started putting together idea.
Outstanding Issues
- Software we were thinking of using was QLC (but it only supports 4 universes) or MagicQ (but it's x86-only which means more power draw)
- If we go x86, the fit-PC might be a good choice, it's a 6-8W x86 box in a small metal enclosure
Ideas/Plans
- Main idea is to cover most of the scaffold tower in addressable LED strips, driven by one or more StrichLux modules
- Art-Net will be used between the controller and the StrichLux box
- BeagleBone is being looked at to control the whole display
- <1W idle, 1.75W full load
- Comes with onboard Ethernet
- Need to find a fanless very low power 4 or 5 port Ethernet switch
- Allied Telesis AT-FS705LE V5 might work, it's rugged, low power, and cheap
System Components
- BeagleBone (controller)
- 4-port fanless Ethernet switch
- 1 or 2 StrichLux boxes (transform engine/protocol converter)
- Many LED strips (need to work out dimensions)
- Power setup (need to work out power details)
- Debugging terminal (XO-1?)
Power Details
- Power requirements (peak)
- BeagleBone - 1.75W
- Ethernet Switch - 1.7W (assuming AT-FS705LE V5)
- StrichLux box(es) - ???
- LEDs - 10W/m (need to measure to confirm)
LED Details
- Length required (very roughly until I get real numbers from Skibit)
- Main vertical bars: 4 * 20ft = 80ft
- Ladder vertical bars: 10 * 3ft = 30ft (but 2 of those are near ground level)
- Rigid guys: 4 * 6ft = 24ft
- Ladder rungs: 8 * 4 * 1.5ft = 36ft
- Total: 170ft (plus probably want a bit extra just in case, so 11 strips or 180ft)
- That's 1760 LEDs and 550W peak!
