Kemper LED » Powerhouse Electronics

Kemper LED Lamps Going Open Source

Aug 102010

I’m pleased to announce that the Kemper LED Lamp product is going Open Source!

The Kemper LED Lamp is just way to cool to not have in wide spread use. I’m hoping that by opening the source code to all that the concept will become more widly used and accepted.

The original design was called the “Kemper LED Lamp” and I sold a few lamps to several brave folks through the ph-elec.com web site. However, I’ve come to discover selling small quantities to a few folks is a major pain in the backside. Hand soldering these together and then selling them at $4 bucks each is no way to make money. Continue reading »

KemperLED Control Panel

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Mar 022010

The “KemperLED Control Panel” is designed to make it easy to bring up a new string of KemperLED lamps for the first time. The control panel provides a easy way for most of the KemperLED functions to be exercised, quickly, and easily.

This software is a beta version and will continue to be enhanced. So, send us your comments and feedback on the application. We’re always looking for new ideas to make our products better.

Also, the control panel is provided as Open-Source. Open-Source allows you to look under-the-hood, so to speak, to see how to easily drive the LEDs with commands.

Again, give us your feedback.

KemperLED_Control_Panel_App

KemperLED_Control_Panel_Source_Code

The Jimmy Neutron LED Pinewood Derby Car

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Feb 272010

You know your in trouble when you have to fix software bugs in your son’s Pinewood Derby car!

This year I decided to give up trying to compete with the “Gear-Heads” in our Cub Scout Pack. There are just too many variables when trying to build a fast car. Plus, the Gear-Heads always seem to get lucky.

The first year we built a really fast car – I think it was just dumb luck. We placed second place overall for speed that first year. That was out of a pack of 50 cars. There is nothing better than winning!

We’ll, with a little taste of success under our belts, we thought we could simple do it again. Wrong! I pulled all the tricks last year and put a ton of time into trying to build the ultimate speeder. The reward for all that work was a car that finished in the bottom third of the pack for speed. Bummer! There is nothing worst than losing! Continue reading »

Kemper LED Documentation

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Dec 092009

Kemper LED Hardware Layout

Kemper LED Documentation…

All hardware and software documentation starts on this page.

Brief hardware / software summary: Continue reading »

Pan Tilt LED Mount

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Dec 082009

Pan Tilt Demo

This was an attempt to test how well a Kemper LED Lamp board would work to control RC servo motors. In theory, one Kemper LED Lamp board should be able to control four RC servo motors at the same time. However, in terms of how how well control is achievied, the quick answer is – not so much.

I bought some really cheap servo motors from HobbyPartz. At only $3.50 each, I thought, “what the heck – my boys, and I, can have some fun”. Sure enough, these little motors are fun to play with. Here is a link to the web site where I bought the servos. To control the motor’s position, the motor accepts a pulse width of .5 to 1.5ms, repeated at 50Hz. As an example, a pulse with of 1.0ms would center the motor in the middle of its 180 degree rotation. Continue reading »

Kemper LED Lamp Demo

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Nov 252009

64 Kemper LED Lamps in Glass Vase

Have you seen the YouTube video yet? Have a look at this: intructable YouTube Video Clip One

Here are a couple of other You Tube clips too: Clip Two / Clip Three

After the video was made, kdenlive was used to remove the really bad sound track and replace it with the original MP3 track that was playing while the camcorder was taping. So, in effect, it just cleaned up the audio perfectly. The audio now has the full dynamic range and is again in stereo.

Kemper LED PC Interface

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Nov 222009

Kemper LED PC Interface

Kemper LED Lamp PC Interface:

Note, this item is no longer available.

Description:

The Kemper LED Lamp PC Interface allows a standard RS232 port to be
interfaced to the half-duplex TTL Kemper LED Lamps. All characters sent by the host PC
are echoed back to the PC. All connected Kemper LED Lamps can also
communicate back to the host PC using this interface. The interface
board also allows a standard 5Vdc wall transformer, with 2.1mm x 5.5mm
male plug, to power the interface and all connected Kemper LED Lamps.

The PC interface could be used for other half-duplex applications as well.

Dimensions: Continue reading »

Kemper LED / Arduino Interface

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Nov 222009

Kemper LED / Arduino Interface

Kemper LED Lamps Interface to Arduino Duemilanove:

The interface to the Arduino board turned out out to be very simple. A simple three wire connection is all that is required.Power for the lamps connects to the Arduino +5V connection and ground, of coarse, connects to one of the GND connections. See below for the third wire connection. Continue reading »

Kemper Lamp Board Layout

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Nov 202009

New Sheet of 64 Lamps on a 8x8 Grid

The board layout for the Kemper LED Lamps is just dead simple. The original design was done in Altium Designer 2004. Since the design is so simple it should not be too difficult to reproduce in other schematic capture applications.

The entire project has been exported from Altium 2004 as a “smart” PCB. Here is the link to the Three_Wire_PCB_v2.pdf

After the initial layout was completed, the project was loaded into CAMtastic. Using CAMtastic the board was arrayed into a grid of 8×8 boards. The resulting board is approximately 6.25 x 5.25 inches. The gutter distance between boards was set to 0.055″ (the width of a bandsaw blade). Continue reading »

Kemper LED Desciption

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Nov 192009

Kemper LED Lamp

Description:

The Kemp LED Lamp provides the designer the ability to dynamically control four LED lights. Each, of the four, LED output channels are independently controllable using simple 9600 baud serial commands. The LED are smoothly controlled using PWM (pulse width modulated) output control signals. Many interesting affects can be achieved using the Kemp LED Lamps.

Dimensions:

30mm x 16mm (10mm thickness)

Specifications: Continue reading »

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