RGB led baloon light ( large baloon )

Amonra · Apr 4, 2007

A friend of mine who organises conferences etc has these large white baloons ( about 7ft when full of helium ) which he wishes to light up from the inside and float to create an atmosphere during outdoor conferences.
They will not be intended to light an area but just the baloon itself.

he wishes the light to be RGB controllable from the ground and possibly control all balloon colours at once.

I'm guessing that 1pc red, 1pc green and 1pc blue XR-E/SSCp4 led's should be enough to light up the balloon itself with a decent amount of light.

My problem is how to drive them and coe to control them.

Any Ideas ???

greenlight · Apr 4, 2007

Maybe it would be easier to light them from below?

Amonra · Apr 4, 2007

i guess it would but it is not what he wishes to do

RonM · Apr 4, 2007

Why not put a LED Throwie inside each balloon? Basically a small button battery, magnet and LED taped together. Of course you could leave off the magnet since it's not needed. However the color of each would be fixed.

chris_m · Apr 4, 2007

Probably easier to use one SSC P5 than 3 P4s

Meduza · Apr 4, 2007

I think that one Seoul P5 is enough if this is in night conditions.

Just a Seoul P5 on a custom base that can be put inside the baloon and a four-core cable to the ground hooked up to a RGB driver.

65535 · Apr 4, 2007

I would say you would rather use an array of RGB Led's or R, G, B leds instead of P4's just 5 or 10mm leds diffused. They shouldn't creat too much heat so they won't fry, the thing is keeping them powered and suspended, you would need an internal wire or stand to hold them up, and either a wireless remote or a wired remote.

riffraff · Apr 4, 2007

Will there be music? How about a 3-channel "light organ" driver on the ground?

http://www.montek.com/cart/catalog/Color-Light-Organ-3-Channel-p-26995.html

Amonra · Apr 4, 2007

Ronm: These are 7ft balloons not the common party balloons.

Chris m: the SSC P5 looks nice but im not sure if it is powerful enough. Maybe the Lamina ones are brighter, has anyone tried them ?

Meduza: apart from the P5 that's what i was thinking about, but how to build the rgb driver capable of driving up to 8 of these ?
if for example i simply hook up all 8 green +ve wires coming from the led's to a pot which is then hooked to the power supply ( and do the same with the blue and red ) would it be good enough ? another issue it think would be the length of the wire as i guess they would be at least 5 meters off the ground and possibly another 10 meters away from the controller & power supply.

65535: heat is not too much of an issue as i will be building a large custom heatsink with an included helium filling hole and valve.

riffraff: im not sure about music but i guess the conferences would not have some pumping music but more of the classical type. but it is a good idea nonetheless.

gadget_lover · Apr 4, 2007

A VERY simplsitic solution is to buy one of the very cheap 2 channel remote airplanes such as harbor freight sells. Cannibalize the plane for the electronics. Use one channel to drive a white LED (and adjust brightness). Use the other to spin a color wheel that the LED shines through. That will adjust the color.

This would allow a very compact, lightweight, single light source, radio remote controlled model.

Of course, you could also use the controls to select different colored LEDs (mechanically or electronically) rather than a color wheel.

Daniel

Wim Hertog · Apr 4, 2007

The chromoflex RGB driver (xeroflex.com) should be ideal for this. I would use at least 3 SSC P5 LEDs (in series configuration).

The chromoflex has 3 pwm outputs which can be used to drive a simple 3-channel current source.

Biker Bear · Apr 4, 2007

You might want to have a look at this RGB controller - it can handle up to 5A per channel, so you should be able to drive as many LEDs as you need to get as much light as you want.

rgbphil · Apr 5, 2007

Warning....self plug!

How high will the balloons float? This device:
http://www.rgbsunset.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=2&category_id=2
would be controllable via an IR remote and give multichannel control for some very interesting effects. A very small PCB with the chip, 5 RGB LEDs, limiting resistors and an IR receiver could be made pretty simply and mounted internally to the balloon. A driver like the ULN2803 could be used to drive more powerful LEDs. A more complex arrangement could be done with a RF reciever/transmitter if the balloons float a little higher. PM me for some suggestions on a suitable design, sounds like a cool project.

Incidentally, I'm considering selling these devices as an emailed 'hex' file rather than physical devices, so users can download and program their own units, or use SMT microcontrollers. The more complex USB enabled units with more channels would be available as 'hex' files for OEM or as physical devices for general experimentors.

Please excuse the out of date web site.

Phil

Amonra · Apr 5, 2007

wim hertog: the chroma flex looks nice but i guess i would have to buy one for each balloon as it would be a wiring nightmare to connect all the balloons in series.

biker bear: that controller looks promising and it's cheap too. i did not quite get how to select the modes though. have you ever built and used one of these ?

rgbphil: i dont know how high he intends to float them as i guess it will depend on the events he will use them in.
would it be possible for you to build me some form of pcb including the driver chip, pre programmed controller chip, and an infra red / RF reciever to be able to run 1 to 3 high power SSC P5 LED's ? that way i just feed the PCB with one power wire ( or maybe even make it battery powered ) and then set each balloon ( each containing one of these PCB's ) with the desired colour/pattern via one remote control. That would be the neatest solution.
btw am not an electronics expert and programming chips is way out of my league.

Amonra · Apr 5, 2007

TORCH_BOY · Apr 5, 2007

Interesting, If the balloon breaks you lose you light and radio receiver

rgbphil · Apr 5, 2007

Hi Amonra,
If you want each balloon to just have one colour at a time, you're probably better off with one of the other controllers the others have mentioned here. The chip I mentioned provides 5 channels of RGB...I was thinking of having a rotating pattern cycling of colours around each balloon at 360/5=72 degree spacings. This could be self contained with a battery.

You could have five balloons controlled from one controller with one channel of RGB allocated to each balloon.....however you'd have to pass up at least 5 wires to the balloon, two for power and three for the RGB channel control....so things are getting a little more complex.

Phil

enLIGHTenment · Apr 5, 2007

Amonra said:
65535: heat is not too much of an issue as i will be building a large custom heatsink with an included helium filling hole and valve.

Keep in mind that helium has a different specific heat capacity than air. This may effect requirements for your heatsink.

Biker Bear · Apr 5, 2007

Amonra said:
biker bear: that controller looks promising and it's cheap too. i did not quite get how to select the modes though. have you ever built and used one of these ?

I've bought the kit, but I haven't built it yet. There's two buttons on the controller that are used to select the color program and palette. The details are here (scroll down to "Program Options") but I'll quote them here:

PROGRAM OPTIONS.

RGB-PRO has two distinct program modes. Architectural and FX. In FX mode all programs are available for selection with the program button, but in Architectural mode the flashy effects are locked out and only the dignified effects can be selected.

To change mode between architectural and FX simply press and hold both the Program and Option buttons simultaneously for 15 seconds whereupon the lights connected should go from blue to either red or green. Red indicates architectural mode with the FX programs locked out, while green indicates that the FX have been unlocked. This setting is automatically stored in the chips non-volatile memory. You can change between modes at any time by following the same procedure.

There are four colour palletes used:-

Primary. A fixed selection of saturated primary colours.
Vibrant. A stunning range of saturated colours.
Bright. A range of bright saturated and pastel shades.
Full Spectrum. Every colour that can be achieved from black to white.

The programs available:-

1. Morph and hold with vibrant colours. (Hold delay adjustable.)
2. Morph and hold with bright colours. (Hold delay adjustable.)
3. Morph and hold with full spectrum colours. (Hold delay adjustable.)
4. Red marker to help you find your way through the programs.
5. Sweep continually between vibrant colours.
6. Sweep continually between bright colours.
7. Sweep continually between full spectrum colours.
8. Green marker.
9. Indie dim with each colour "rambling" independently.
10. Indie dim pastels (all colours 25% min).
11. Blue marker.
12. Rainbow. Can be stopped and started on any colour using option button.
13. Rainbow continuous. (Speed adjustable)
14. Black marker.

FX routines below can only be accessed when unit is in FX mode.

15. Colour plasma lightning. (Speed adjustable.)
16. White plasma lightning. (Speed adjustable.)
17. Colour strobe. (Speed adjustable.)
18. Magenta marker.
19. Colour burst with vibrant colours. (Speed adjustable.)
20. Colour burst with bright colours. (Speed adjustable.)
21. Colour burst with full spectrum colours. (Speed adjustable.)
22. Cyan marker.
23. Windswept flame effect. (3 independent.) (Speed adjustable.)
24. Subtle flame effect. (3 independent.) (Speed adjustable.)
25. Yellow marker.
26. Static fixed primary colour. (Selectable.)
27. Random fixed full colour. (Reselectable.)
28. Random fixed vibrant colour. (Reselectable.)
29. Ramping fixed primary colour. (Selectable.)
30. Ramping random colour.
31. White marker.

If both program and option buttons are pressed together briefly the unit will revert to program 1.

After any buttons have been pressed the changes will be stored to non volatile memory after a short delay of up to 15 seconds. this will be indicated by a brief blink of the lights and means that the unit will power up in that mode until further changes are made.

Meduza · Apr 6, 2007

What i would look into is a proffesional solution like this (sorry i did not found a english webpage that sells it):

http://www.molectric.com/product_info.php?cPath=134&products_id=395
http://www.molectric.com/product_info.php?cPath=134&products_id=348

The first link is a master controller with remote control and the second is a slave unit doing the same as the master if they are hooked up as they should.

They have a handling capability of 350ma at up to 24v.

another solution is to buy just masters without remotes and set the color manually for each baloon, they can also be set on slow color-fade.

RGB led baloon light ( large baloon )

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