InputPup for Interactivity
Make your display interactive!
Want to get your audience involved? Have buttons they can push to make the show act in different ways. We call them remote triggers and they can be physically scattered around the display as your venue dictates. By linking specific triggers to different shows in your Light-O-Rama ShowTime Sequencing Suite, the audience can control the show in ways never imagined.
One InputPup allows for connecting up to eight trigger inputs to your Light-O-Rama data network that’s run by your computer. Multiple InputPups can be used to increase available trigger inputs and get them closer to the physical triggers.
How do you use the InputPup in a layout?
What can you do with an InputPup? Put one by your door so when someone steps on a pressure pad your show starts. Add a trigger of a passive infrared detector located by the street to sense vehicles and start a show when one gets close. Put an InputPup close to the viewers so they can pick their own show based on the button they press. Bottom line: make your show interactive!
Want to have multiple triggering devices scattered around your Light-O-Rama data network running from your computer? Each InputPup has eight triggers and you can have multiple InputPups. What’s a trigger? Think push button, pressure pad, PIR device, electric eye, etc.
The InputPup works with Light-O-Rama systems run from your computer. If you are using our ShowTime Directors, use the triggers built into them.
Wiring external switches to the InputPup is easy. See the diagram for a typical case.
The InputPup can be powered via accessory power typically provided on the Cat5 connection of the Light-O-Rama data network or +9vdc connected to the terminal block of the InputPup. Most Light-O-Rama Ready-To-Go controllers provide accessory power or use one of our various protocol adapters or an external power supply.
For increased reliability, the InputPup’s inputs are optically isolated. Inputs are also ESD protected meeting the IEC 61000-4-2 level 4 standards: 15 kV (air discharge), 8 kV (contact discharge).
InputPups only work with shows run from a computer. InputPups tap into the sophisticated logic available in shows run from a computer. InputPups do not work on networks run by a ShowTime Director, miniDirector or a stand-alone controller.
External triggers in your layout
1. The Light-O-Rama ShowTime Sequencing Suite works on your personal computer running Microsoft Windows and allows you to design your own shows. The ShowTime Sequencing Suite then runs your shows and sends the right commands at the right time to the various control channels. The ShowTime Sequencing Suite can even keep music synchronized to the controller commands.
2. Speakers to play the music accompanying your show are attached to the computer sound card.
3. Your personal computer communicates to the controllers using a device plugged into your computer’s serial or USB communications port. The blue line shows the standard serial output of your computer (RS-232 or USB) out of your PC where it enters our converter that transforms the signal to the native Light-O-Rama network protocol (the green line) that connects to our various types of controllers over standard computer network wire. We recommend Cat 5 LAN cables available from us and off-the-shelf from your local big box store in the computer section.
4. The Light-O-Rama professional or residential high voltage AC light controllers include special effects such as simple on/off, intensities, smooth fading, twinkling, shimmering. Over 200 controllers can be daisy chained, mixed and matched on one LOR network giving you the ability to command thousands of channels. Need more channels? Add another Light-O-Rama network.
5. Electrical power is supplied to the controller placed close to your lights so you don’t need to run long extension cords. Commands from the ShowTime Sequencing Suite are performed on each controller. Power to each of the attached lighting circuits is controlled independently. Think of having many dimmer switches that the computer can change very quickly and independently.
6. Anywhere on your LOR data network can be inserted an InputPup for external triggers. Each input device (push button, motion sensor, pressure pad, etc) can trigger a different show to run.
Servo Control with DIO
Use servos for some moving animation!
The ServoDog is more than just an eight channel servo board. The eight channels can run either in servo mode or as standard logic level outputs to power low current items such as LEDs or solid state relays. In addition two of the channels can be configured as high current PWM channels with their own power input to run DC motors, LED spotlights and many other low voltage DC devices.
Two 3 amp voltage regulators are on-board to power the servos. The regulators are adjustable so you can pick the correct voltage for you servo application. Channels 1-4 are powered by one regulator and 5-8 are powered by the other.
]What can you control with a ServoDog controller? The ServoDog can give you fine control of two servos making this a great controller for any type of robotics work. The controller also has six binary input channels and can be configured for multiple output channels.
Each of the servo channels can be configured independently to control the range of the pulse width, behavior at startup and when there is a communications loss. The ServoDog automatically detects LOR or DMX-512 connectivity.
- 8 output channels that can be configured as Servo or DIO
- 6 input channels
- 2 of the output channels can be configured as high current PWM
- 2 on-board, high current adjustable voltage regulators for servo power (one regulator for each 4 channels)
- You select the output voltage for your servos
- Single input powers card and servos (via adjustable voltage regulators)
- Independent servo configuration for each channel
- Communications protocol Light-O-Rama data network or DMX-512
- Can run wireless using our Easy Light Linkers
- Can run off batteries or DC power inputs
- Can run standalone
- Controller board only and does not include servos, enclosure or power supply
Already have a communications infrastructure using DMX-512 typically used in the entertainment industry? We’ve got you covered. Light-O-Rama light controllers are smart enough to analyze the type of data network they are connected to and adapt to DMX-512 if needed. Depending on the unique network assigned to your Light-O-Rama controller, it will occupy that DMX-512 address plus the next few channels. The control channels (depending on the controller) must be in the same DMX-512 universe.
What do you need to get your ServoDog controller to work under your command? If you’re the creative type our ShowTime Sequencing Suite provides all the tools needed to create your own incredible show.
Servos at work
Hooking it up
1. The Light-O-Rama ShowTime Sequencing Suite works on your personal computer running Microsoft Windows and allows you to design your own shows. The ShowTime Sequencing Suite then runs your shows and sends the right commands at the right time to the various control channels. The ShowTime Sequencing Suite can even keep music synchronized to the controller commands.
2. Speakers to play the music accompanying your show are attached to the computer sound card.
3. Your personal computer communicates to the controllers using a device plugged into your computer’s serial or USB communications port. The blue line shows the standard serial output of your computer (RS-232 or USB) out of your PC where it enters our converter that transforms the signal to the native Light-O-Rama network protocol (the green line) that connects to our various types of controllers over standard computer network wire. We recommend Cat 5 LAN cables available from us and off-the-shelf from your local big box store in the computer section.
4. The Light-O-Rama professional or residential high voltage AC light controllers include special effects such as simple on/off, intensities, smooth fading, twinkling, shimmering. Over 200 controllers can be daisy chained, mixed and matched on one LOR network giving you the ability to command thousands of channels. Need more channels? Add another Light-O-Rama network.
5. Electrical power is supplied to the controller placed close to your lights so you don’t need to run long extension cords. Commands from the ShowTime Sequencing Suite Suite are performed on each controller. Power to each of the attached lighting circuits is controlled independently.
6. Connection to the Light-O-Rama Digital I/O boards (great for connecting to the outside world, including fountains, alarm systems and/or existing automated devices) or our ServoDog servo controllers used in apparatus requiring motion such as robotics.
7. The Light-O-Rama network can control servo motors (such as used in robots).
8. The Light-O-Rama network can control other low voltage devices (example: water valves in fountains).