{"id":326,"date":"2015-10-07T18:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T18:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/?p=326"},"modified":"2016-03-28T16:05:10","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T16:05:10","slug":"tower-lights-ready-for-night-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/?p=326","title":{"rendered":"Tower Lights – Ready for Night Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is the “Tower Lights” Project?<\/h1>\n

I’m investigating attaching LED light strings to the guy wires that hold up short to medium height radio towers.  I got the idea driving past Rustler’s Rooste<\/a> nearby.
\nThey have strings of low-wattage incandescent lights along 6 guy wires attached to the upper portion of the tower, as well as along 3 guy wires each at about two-thirds and one-third the way up, for a total of 12 strings of lights.  But theirs are all white, and left on daily from sun-down to sun-up, so they’ve got to be costing several hundred dollars a month in electricity.<\/p>\n

What’s involved in the “Night Test”<\/h1>\n

\"Top<\/a>

Top portion of the tower at Rustler’s Rooste<\/p><\/div>I’ve been working on a 10 foot tall demonstration tower — basically a length of PVC pipe with 6 ropes and LED strings attached.  The LED strings are waterproof, and I’ve attached waterproof connectors at the ends.  To those, I’ve attached an extension cable — also waterproof — which is then connected to waterproof housing.  Inside the housing the microcontroller unit and a breadboard to connect the power source (a portable USB charger) and the data signals.<\/p>\n

To make the demonstration unit portable, the whole unit can be disassembled and reassembled as needed.  The PVC pipe slips into a pretty large base, the kind designed to hold umbrellas.  Each of the ropes (the pseudo guy wires) attaches to a ring that is around the PVC pipe, and after connecting the LED strings, extension cables, and control unit, the center end of the ropes is hoisted from ground level to the top of the pipe.  The far end of each rope is attached with quick-release hardware to an eye bolt embedded into a large brick.<\/p>\n

What  is the Tower Light system made of?<\/h1>\n

\"Hammond<\/a>

Hammond waterproof enclosure for microcontroller and wirings, with Switchcraft EN3 connectors attached<\/p><\/div>The microcontroller is a Cypress PSoC 5LP<\/a>.  The LED strings are WS2811 controllers and a 5 volt RBG LED unit embedded in watertight plastic, each connected to the next, and there are 50 LEDs on each string, with 3-pin connectors on each end.  (I ordered direct from iPixel<\/a> in China.)  For each of the 6 demo strings, I’ve removed the “front” end connector and soldered in a Switchcraft EN3<\/a> 4-pin male connector, which plugs into the mating female connector of the extension cable.  On the other end of the extension cable is another male connector, which connects to the panel-mount female connector mounted on the side of the Hammond enclosure<\/a>.  I’ve used a variety of USB power sources, including Jackery<\/a> and Zagg<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While researching connectors, I met Richard Roberts at Moss Marketing<\/a> who showed me a variety of connectors, including those from Switchcraft, which I knew would meet my needs. Richard in turn put me in touch with Larry Cairo at the Phoenix Allied Electrical<\/a> office, where I ordered the Switchcraft connectors and Hammond enclosure.<\/p>\n

I bought rope and the hoisting hardware from the local McFadden Dale<\/a> store here in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

I’ll post an update with night-time  video soon!<\/p>\n

What’s the long-term goal?<\/h1>\n

What I’d like to be able to do is create “Tower Light Kits” made from “standard” lengths of LED light strings and extension cables to be connected to a standard controller box.  They’d be easy to install and maintain, and use very little electricity.<\/p>\n

The light show could be customized by the user, selecting display times, brightness, and color schemes:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Red and green for Christmas<\/li>\n
  • Shades of green for St Patrick’s day<\/li>\n
  • Red, white, and blue for Fourth of July<\/li>\n
  • Orange and brown for Halloween<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What is the “Tower Lights” Project? I’m investigating attaching LED light strings to the guy wires that hold up short to medium height radio towers.  I got the idea driving past Rustler’s Rooste nearby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/3d.rayharwood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20151007_172323718_iOS1.jpg?fit=3264%2C2448&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p76pQa-5g","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":342,"url":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/?p=342","url_meta":{"origin":326,"position":0},"title":"First \"Dark Demo\"","date":"October 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Tower Light Kit 10 foot tower was all hooked up yesterday, so last night we fired it up.\u00a0 It looked pretty good in the nearly-dark dusk... and this morning in the dark, it looked fantastic! See the video on YouTube here. This demo was run at 1\/4 power!\u00a0 It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tower Lights"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3d.rayharwood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/TowerLight-Demo1.jpg?fit=640%2C400&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":188,"url":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/?p=188","url_meta":{"origin":326,"position":1},"title":"NeoPixel Gas Mask Mod: Daisy-chain the LEDs","date":"October 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The NeoPixel Gas Mask, as presented by the Ruiz Brothers on the Adafruit web site, wires both LED \"data in\" ports to the GEMMA's \"data out\" port.\u00a0 This means that lighting up \"pixel number 1\" lights up two pixels: pixel number 1 on the 16 LED ring, and pixel number\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NeoPixel Gas Mask"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":181,"url":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/?p=181","url_meta":{"origin":326,"position":2},"title":"NeoPixel Gas Mask Holder for LEDs and GEMMA","date":"October 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The holder created by the Ruiz Brothers on Adafruit and Thingiverse didn't quite fit into the respirator portion of our gas mask, and we thought the attachment of the rings was also a little clunky. (But then, we're relatively new to this whole 3D printing thing... so we're not saying\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Lulzbot TAZ 4"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3d.rayharwood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141027_150136202_iOS.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":172,"url":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/?p=172","url_meta":{"origin":326,"position":3},"title":"Flashing Rings!","date":"October 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"GEMMA is flashing rings! Yesterday afternoon I tried my hand at soldering, trying to attach power, ground, and data to one of the NeoPixel assemblies (16 LED).\u00a0 I totally suck at soldering! Last night Franklin stepped in and soldered wires to the second (24 LED) and to the GEMMA --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NeoPixel Gas Mask"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3d.rayharwood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/20141024_122318919_iOS.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25,"url":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/?p=25","url_meta":{"origin":326,"position":4},"title":"Drawer Dividers in 30 min!","date":"July 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm creating a drawer divider for a craft cabinet. The cabinet only came with 6-8 dividers.\u00a0 It took me under 30 minutes to replicate the divider in FreeCAD. Printing one-up, it seems to print fine.\u00a0 Printing 6-up, there are issues.\u00a0 So I emailed the folks at Aleph Objects for support.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Aleph Objects"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3d.rayharwood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/20140629-152133-55293369.jpg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":245,"url":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/?p=245","url_meta":{"origin":326,"position":5},"title":"Tail mechanics!","date":"April 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a shot of my first \"4-way tentacle control\". I can't say enough about the DVDs from the Stan Winston School of Character Arts! I've watched most of 3 DVDs, and learned so much, including how to machine parts for the tentacle control, and how to 3D print parts for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3D Objects"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/3d.rayharwood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/IMG_1971.jpg?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":389,"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions\/389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3d.rayharwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}