wa123

You guys seem to know what you're talking about, so how would you make a light board that has 4 channels, and only uses on/off switches?  I have a couple of DMX lights, a strobe, and a disco ball light, that all sits on the same stand and I was wondering how to make a board for this.  No dimmers, just on/off relays.  What would be the best/cheapest way to make this?  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

You guys seem to know what you're talking about, so how would you make a light board that has 4 channels, and only uses on/off switches?  I have a couple of DMX lights, a strobe, and a disco ball light, that all sits on the same stand and I was wondering how to make a board for this.  No dimmers, just on/off relays.  What would be the best/cheapest way to make this?  Any help would be greatly appreciated! What exactly is it that you are trying to do?  If you just want to turn power on and off to the units and rely on their internal programming to set up some effects sequence, then a simple switched power supply will do - remembering that most discharge lamps will not come up immediately when switched on and some have a delay when switched off and on again.  If you want to control the attributes of the instruments, you will need something which sends the required number of channels of DMX info.  Given that you are asking the question in the way you did, you might not have the expertise to build a unit and may be better off purchasing any one of a number of small DMX controllers designed for the DJ market.

It's just for turning four or five channels either on or off from a table about 25 feet away from the lights.  My lights come on immediately when plugged in, there isn't any delay.  And don't worry, I won't be building this alone.  One of my friends is an electrician. Now I've read about using cat 5 cable and I've seen some using serial cable.  What would be the easiest way to make this?

: You guys seem to know what you're talking about, so how would you make : a light board that has 4 channels, and only uses on/off switches?  I : have a couple of DMX lights, a strobe, and a disco ball light, that all : sits on the same stand and I was wondering how to make a board for : this.  No dimmers, just on/off relays.  What would be the best/cheapest : way to make this?  Any help would be greatly appreciated! What do you mean by DMX lights ? Moving lights? Or merely a pair of par cans that you heard could be controlled by something called DMX? If the former, you are unlikely to be able to build anything yourself to manage these, certainly not with switches and relays. If the latter, I'd say forget the relays and build a four-gang switchbox with four receptacles to power each of the four fixtures. Pay attention to load currents and ratings of switches and wire and grounding and flexible cable rating requirements and overload protection. The more complicated you make it (e.g. relays), the more likely you are to build something fundamentally unsafe unless you spend more time studying the safety issues than you spend building the thing. If you insist on relays, www.textrolinc.com sells Idec relays in all flavors to onesy-twosey tinkerers like you and me. But now you probably also need a transformer or a power supply to supply a safe control voltage through whatever control cable you choose, fuse on the supply, yadda, yadda. Keep in mind that a relay big enough to switch 15A will consume at least a watt or two of power, so your control supply may need to be bigger than a cast-off wall-wart or sprinkler system transformer. Bob Miller

It's just for turning four or five channels either on or off from a table about 25 feet away from the lights.  My lights come on immediately when plugged in, there isn't any delay.  And don't worry, I won't be building this alone.  One of my friends is an electrician. Now I've read about using cat 5 cable and I've seen some using serial cable.  What would be the easiest way to make this? For 5 lights? 1 8 core MAINS (not cat5 or serial unless you want to start a fire) cable of 25-30ft length, 1 standard household switch bank (2 x 3 way should do fine) You can either wire the lights permanently to a junction box on the stand and fit that with an 8-way connector or you can have a breakout box made with 5 separate outputs and an 8-way input connector. I'd suggest putting a similar socket on the control end, allowing you to have a fully detachable cable, it'll be a pain to transport and liable to damage if you don't. You should be able to get the 8 way cable & connectors fairly easily, in the UK we call them 'bulgin plugs', still widely used by mobile DJ's - see here : http://www.bulgin.co.uk/Products/GenPurpose_Connectors/Plugs_and_Sock... Personally, I'd go buy a cheap switchpack and controller off of e-bay, less hassle and a better result. Jim.

I looked into buying a power switch controller and was shocked by the prices of some of these things.  I looked on ebay, and didnt find anything.  I finally found something at <a href= http://www.progearwarehouse.com/s.nl/category.133/it.A/id.368/.f Progearwarehouse </a and was thinking of just buying that, but i'm from Canada, so I would have the exchange rate, shipping, and customs charges which would skyrocket the price.  But I'm looking for something just like the one in the _link_.  Any comments?