Absolute noob from Geelong with a unique project. HELP!

[Dmc]

Hi everyone,

I'm building an expedition truck using an ex CFA 4x4 Isuzu. I'm planning on combining LEDs, perspex and copper for the external cladding to turn our truck into a travelling light show. We plan on taking our truck to arts and music festivals and use it to spread awareness for all kinds of topics. This is a whole new world for me, so I have a lot to learn, any help is much appreciated, especially if there is anyone from Geelong that would like to help me along the way.

Here's an introduction to our build

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9CKZDNjE4A

 

[AAH]

Welcome to ACL.
What sort of led lights are you looking to put on it? Are you just looking at bordering things or putting on display panels or a combination of them both? Drawing up a picture of what you are wanting there will make it easier to offer advice.

 

[TerryK]

Trying to make relevant suggestions are a bit difficult until additional information is presented. With that, I would suggest using 12 volt LEDs powered from the Isuzu's battery. There are a few concerns, size of the alternator, battery/batteries, and the alternator shoving the 12 volt to 13.8 when running mostly. This assumes that the Isuzu's electrical system is 12 volt of course.

 

[Katekate]

Just double check the road laws.

By the strictest interpretation, you cant have them in most states. But you should be ok as long as you never use them while driving.

 

[Ambarta]

Hey Dan,

I'm based out of Geelong and work in entertainment lighting. It's my first year of pixels this year, but the ACL community especially have been incredibly helpful.
I'm more than happy to help out and offer any advice that I can, whilst still learning myself. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you'd like to catch up.

Pat

 

[Mark_M]

A car battery is not ideal for constant load draw, a deep cycle battery is better and should lead to longer life before the plates inside dissolve.
Next option is a bank of Lithium ion batteries or similar.

What ever is decided upon, it will likely be best to have a caravan type electrical system to charge and power everything when mains power is available.


Like @AAH 's comment; please provide some images or diagrams of your ideas .

 

[Dmc]

@TerryK @Mark_M The truck is a 24v system but will the house will be set up with 240VAC. I'll run the lights off the house system, which can be hooked up to shore power through a 5kva inverter/charger.

Please excuse my drawing, I haven't yet taught myself to use design software, its on the list. So I've drawn the shape of our truck in purple, the grey lead lines are the LED strips I want to install, the other side of the truck will be the same.

From what I've learnt so far, I want to use individually addressable IP65 strips, but I have no idea how to configure this, do you need a controller at the end of each strip?

 

[SmartAlecLights]

@TerryK @Mark_M The truck is a 24v system but will the house will be set up with 240VAC. I'll run the lights off the house system, which can be hooked up to shore power through a 5kva inverter/charger.

Please excuse my drawing, I haven't yet taught myself to use design software, its on the list. So I've drawn the shape of our truck in purple, the grey lead lines are the LED strips I want to install, the other side of the truck will be the same.

From what I've learnt so far, I want to use individually addressable IP65 strips, but I have no idea how to configure this, do you need a controller at the end of each strip?

looking at your design an seeing your ability,
personaly i would go for outdoor rated p10 panels, or even p5 or p1.2 (if you want to watch sports on a large screen)

 

[Dmc]

looking at your design an seeing your ability,
personaly i would go for outdoor rated p10 panels, or even p5 or p1.2 (if you want to watch sports on a large screen)

That's never occurred to me. If my maths is correct, p5 panels would weigh just under 10kg/m2. That's not too heavy. It wouldn't look that good in the daylight but at night.... Where would you buy them from?

 

[djgra79]

Panels draw a lot of power, particularly P5 panels (I tested 4x indoor P5 panels and they drew 19.2A on 5V highest brightness on full white.)
You'd need a lot of panels to cover the size of 2 sides of a truck. Personally I think the strip lights would still look quite impressive, and be much less power draw to worry about.

 

[Dmc]

Panels draw a lot of power, particularly P5 panels (I tested 4x indoor P5 panels and they drew 19.2A on 5V highest brightness on full white.)
You'd need a lot of panels to cover the size of 2 sides of a truck. Personally I think the strip lights would still look quite impressive, and be much less power draw to worry about.

Yeah looks like it would also be out of my budget. I want to incorporate other materials so I'll stick with the strips

 

[TerryK]

The 24 Volt system is not surprising. My thought was with strategic energy management, the display could be truck system powered and the batteries recharged while driving. Parked longer the display and truck battery could be maintained with a battery tender of some sort. Alternator/battery size and battery charge monitoring would need to be planned/considered.

As KateKate mentioned, driving while the display was illuminated would be a definite LE Officer incident here in the US. I suspect frowned upon in Australia as well.

If you have not already, I would suggest downloading and reading ACL's 101 Manual. It will help explain some of what you are asking. Check ACL's Wiki and Media files too. I would not be too concerned about the controller quite yet. The number of strips, LEDs per strip, and type of LED will pretty much determine which controllers will or will not work. To answer your question however, while there are exceptions, strings/strips are typically daisy-chained driven by a single controller.

You may want to research IP67 strips. IP65 strips are splashproof while IP67 strips are supposedly waterproof. Supposedly because the silicone coating sometimes has openings where the build quality is lacking. I have some IP65 strips and the solder pads on the rear are not protected so the mounting needs to be non-conductive.

 

[Mark_M]

Panels give the best resolution and brightness for show purposes. xLights with patterns will look cool but could use a panel driving card to connect a display source like HDMI. [Inference to later comment on end achievement]

I'm torn between bullet/square nodes or strip for water resistant rating.
With the cost of bullet/square nodes being almost the same price, it seems better in the long run to use them. It will be soo much easier to repair and waterproof them than strip.
But I won't scare you off strip, another member on here has plenty of strip and has no problem with them.

I would not be too concerned about the controller quite yet.

I will ask what control methods are intended, it's likely inconvenient to always have a computer running xLights or Raspberry Pi with FPP.
I see in a video by @Dmc about controlling linear actuators with an App; are you likely to want an effect displayed at the touch of a button?

To wrap this up; I would like to ask; 'what do you want it to achieve?'

 

[Dmc]

@TerryK The house battery will be hooked up to the alternator with a DC to DC charger. For simplicity's sake it's probably better to run them from the house batteries.

I have downloaded the manual and have been reading through it. I've been so impressed with the info in there and the effort people have gone to. I agree about the IP67 lights. Better to be safe than sorry.

@Mark_M The bullets/square nodes may be better for my application, looks like they have more flexibility. Although mounting could be trickier than strip..

I'm going to automate the actuators on the truck using a Pi so and I'm thinking I'll also use the Pi for the lights.

As for what I want to achieve - firstly I want to have a few basic patterns/sequences that I can run while at events, nothing too fancy. but I also want to learn more about synchronisation with music and if it's possible to allow musicians to somehow hook up to it?

 

[Katekate]

the music sync is not automated, its all pre-programmed. If you wanted it to sync with a live performance, you would have to get the band to play to a click track or something.