I know that the new DIO32 board has digital inputs, But can they be configured to play, pause, stop and select different musical sequences if they are being played off my PC.
Just an example:
I/O 1 plays musical sequence 1
I/O 2 plays musical sequence 2
I/O 3 plays musical sequence 3
I/O 4 Pause
I/O 5 Stop
Or will the digital inputs only trigger a non musical sequence that is downloaded to the controller.
Steve Constantino wrote: I know that the new DIO32 board has digital inputs, But can they be configured to play, pause, stop and select different musical sequences if they are being played off my PC.
Just an example:
I/O 1 plays musical sequence 1
I/O 2 plays musical sequence 2
I/O 3 plays musical sequence 3
I/O 4 Pause
I/O 5 Stop
Or will the digital inputs only trigger a non musical sequence that is downloaded to the controller.
Steve
Steve,
You will be able to control things at the PC. There will not be a "pause" button but there will be the other things that you mentioned. You will be able to start musical sequences and stop them. There will be options that determine if a muical seqeunce can be interrupted by another button or not. As far as stopping it, you would do so by putting in short animation sequence (1/10 second long) that turns out the lights. It would be associated with your stop button. A button will be associated with a sequence thus the need for a "stop sequence" as described above.
i was wondering have you worked out a way to control the mc-tb08 with the Dio-32.
i remember you saying that the patch lead on the mc-tb08 is 10 pin and i think the dio-32 is 14.
what should i do about connetions and when will the dio-32 be available for sale.
thanks les m , uk
Hi Les,
It will take a little rigging but the DIO32 will control the mc-tb08. It will require the 10 wire ribbon cable be spliced into the 16 wire ribbon cable that comes out of the DIO32. We can show you the correct wiring.
Jeff Juneman wrote: Is it safe to say that the DIO32 board and accessories will not be available for purchase until after the New Year?
I have a feeling it'll be sooner than that...
I found a little problem with my hardware that might make it incompatable with the DIO32. This issue is only with the output of the card. My solid state realys are homemade using circuit boards designed by the folks in DIY land. They bus source and control sink. What that means is the opto couplers that switch the AC circuit on and off have +5V bussed between them, and the sink (0V) is applied to switch an individual channel on. There's a couple reasons this is desirable. The first is compatability with DIY hardware... not that it matters here. Another reason is the fact that PCI DIO cards have a high current version of the card that sinks output at 64ma, it's source output is only 16ma. Much more capacity when using a low to switch.
The issue here is if you try to use common readily available DIY SSRs, they are on when the LOR channel is off... LOR sources output from DIO cards and I believe it does the same with the new DIO32. I discussed this issue I have with Dan and John. Dan hinted at a workaround for my PCI card problem... and John suggested a DIP switch fix for the DIO32. Anyone who is thinking about using common SSRs outside of the stuff provided by LOR needs to think about the way they are connected until a solution is resolved. I made an inverter for my first 48 channels. It wasn't a cheap solution in any way. The inverter was a ULN2803 chip that has 8 Darlington Pairs in each. It flips the output and carries the load of the optos. I don't know if it would work with the DIO32 but I'm not really sure without trying it first. That would require having a DIO32 in hand...
Jeff
____________________ Evan... Are you at home resting yet? I'm very glad you're feeling better!
Jeff Juneman wrote: Is it safe to say that the DIO32 board and accessories will not be available for purchase until after the New Year? Here... read for yourself...
____________________ Evan... Are you at home resting yet? I'm very glad you're feeling better!
I wanted to update folks on my fountain experience this season as as as pose a question to LoR on their future fountain controller and pump line.
Back in the summer of 08 when I started working on my fountain plans and heard about LoR's future release, I choose not to wait (good thing) and went with a std 16 channel controller. I knew I wouldn't be able to vary the speed of my pumps but after testing in the pool I decided that was ok.
I used standard magnetic drive fountain pumps in hopes that I'd later be able to use them with LoR's future controller.
All in all, they looked pretty good and ran for "about" 6 weeks nightly but I did have to do repairs and at the end of the season, the pumps had all (literally) destroyed themselves.
Here's the issue. Magnetic drive pumps have a tendency to not always startup in the right direction. When the spin the wrong way, water flows in the reverse direction. The way the manufacture of the pumps I used prevents this is by including a small latch next to the impeller and when it spins the wrong way it catches and stops it. Not much of an issue when you use these for a fountain as you notice this right away and can unplug / plug it back in until it starts up correctly. Then you leave it that way, forever.
But, when you have a controller, turning the pumps on/off hundreds, if not thousands of times a night, you end up hitting that catch a LOT. Eventually, my pumps it it so many times the case cracked on two of them. I removed the catch and repaired the case to get me though the season but during the last week two more pumps had their catch rip right though the entire case and end up loose in the water. Oh well, lesson learned.
Anyway, my big question for LoR is how are you going to deal with this issue with the pumps you sell? One way would be to just not have a catch but regardless, a magnetic drive pump will not always start (say 50/50) in the right direction and that's going to impact the expected outcome.
Next year I think I'll look into how I can have just one always running larger pump feeding quick response valves I can somehow control. Any suggestions?
