Hardware

I wanted to build a lighting system that can be installed in a home and offer additional feature such as
-Being computer controlled
-Have the ability to change the color of each fixture independently
-Can be activated with the regular AC switch
-Can be music activated
-Can be controlled with smartphone and tablet

I have done a lot of research, and lot of reading about different strategies that could be used. I have first started with a USB IO controller that control led that was solder on a PCB. It didn’t that long to realize that I needed a product that look better and is also permitted to be installed in a house. I then found a company in china that was making high power led downlight.
Those light need to have 6 independent wire to be connected to each fixture, I was pretty lucky because I was also doing some renovation in the basement so it was the perfect timing to install the required wiring. I was also used regular romex cable for AC event if I could use less expensive cable since it low voltage. I did that because If I sell the house, there is chance that the new owner will want regular wiring, so I wanted to make sure this was possible.
Here is how the system look like :

The easy part was the hardware installation of the Led fixture and the Dmx Controller. There is not much electronic neither a lot of software required to do that.
I them wanted to add more effect, I buyed an inexpensive DMX RGB controller and started to build some temporary lighting effect that could be installed for a party like a New Year family party.

I have connected the Led downlight fixture to the constant current dmx decoder and the special effect is connected to the other unprotected rgb dmx receiver the two last thing are the Dmx Moving head.

 

 

Like I said earlier the regular AC switch must still work! Here come the funny part, I have disconnected the AC from the switch and connected it to my IO USB card. So now I can access this switch from my WCF web service! My friend that are also programmer find that very funny when they realized that this switch has .net code behind it.