Oklahoma City, OK
For anyone who would like to turn their music pin into a live concert experience.
Disclaimer: I am not an EE. While my setup has worked reliably, I cannot make any guarantees for how safe and sound these instructions will translate to your application. There are likely way more sensible and elegant solutions that people much smarter than me would recommend. Thus, doing your electrical homework is recommended and otherwise attempt at your own risk.
Acknowledgements: thanks to wayout440 for helping me settle on the optocoupler for triggering
Parts needed:
- Stage lights: different models would likely work as long as they have a “sound-activated” feature. Here is one like the ones I used: https://www.amazon.com/Betopper-Professional-Activated-Master-Slave-Restaurant/dp/B074FFJ165/ref=sr_1_5
- wire: 20 gauge is probably sufficient
- optocoupler: https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=4N35 (get some extras. They’re cheap)
- resistor: values may vary based on your setup but for mine a 220ohm 2W did the job
- some type of bread board to make your connections. I used a cheap one from Radio Shack (RIP)
Assembly:
One of the lights will be selected as the Master. You will need to open up the device to get to the microphone trigger on the device’s PCB. The photo shows the board that I pulled from my unit. I just unplugged the mic connector. You will need to connect wires to the + and - mic terminals. In my case I just soldered them to the pins on the back of the board.
The wires will connect to your optocoupler chip as shown in the diagram.
For the input side you will need to select a flasher to use as a trigger. The flasher will be wired in parallel to the trigger input to the optocoupler as shown in the diagram. The resistor is installed in series and will limit the current from the flasher signal so as not to fry the optocoupler LED. The resistor value will affect the sensitivity of the trigger so having some different values on hand might be useful.
The stage lights will come with a DMX cable that you will use to pair them.
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