Audio/lighting in entertainment room

[meticulous]

Figured I'd ask here, possibly in wrong category..

But I have a room (I'm 21) in my recently bought house, that I've thrown a handful of parties, and it has track lighting in the middle and the previous owner also installed small "garden" lighting on each side of the room.

Don't get it twisted, it's just those little pod lights with LEDs, but they are hardwired to a transformer, that gets plugged into a switched outlet in my media closet.

I just have a simple question of: Does anyone know of any solutions that would allow me to plug those lights in ... and have them react to say music? or maybe even ambience? Either way is most likely fine. I'm very handy with a soldering iron, and also don't want to spend major dough if necessary.

I tried googling a few things, not many sources.

And thanks, for the help in advance.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Have you looked at any DJ equipment sites yet? I would assume that one of those places would be the best bet to find something. It might be safer to just buy some lighting effects that are specifically designed to do what you want to do rather than trying to hook up a control device between the outlet and the power lights / transformer.

I would bet that if you PM-ed Rubycon about this thread that she'd be able to "shed some light" on the issue.

 

[krotchy]

Well the nice thing is a typical LED lighting set is going to be a relative low voltage DC so you could build a pretty simple circuit converter using a power-mosfet to turn the lights on and off. As long as it can handle the current you should be golden.

 

[herm0016]

http://www.goldmine-elec-produ...artments.asp?dept=1059

you could probably modify a kit to do something like that.

 

[cheesehead]

http://www.goldmine-elec-produ...dinfo.asp?number=C4530

That'll do it.

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: Cheesehead
http://www.goldmine-elec-produ...dinfo.asp?number=C4530

That'll do it.

While I agree that will work, I would be slightly worried about cutting and re-applying power to an AC-DC converter that frequently. Its much less strenuous on the control system to do switching on the DC side, since it would be seen as a changing resistance and wouldn't be discharging and charging the input caps like mad.

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: krotchy

While I agree that will work, I would be slightly worried about cutting and re-applying power to an AC-DC converter that frequently. Its much less strenuous on the control system to do switching on the DC side, since it would be seen as a changing resistance and wouldn't be discharging and charging the input caps like mad.

He said "transformer", which led me to assume a linear power supply (which, especially if unregulated, would be just fine.) Of course, it likely isn't one.

However, you could use the AC power output to activate a relay, which could in turn connect the 12v power up.

 

[meticulous]

Thanks for the quick responses guys.. I'll clarify just a bit more and fix one mistake I made in my post.

I've come to find out that there are two actual different sets of pods.

One set if your typical 3 LED, and the other is bulbs, which on that transformer indicates that its only "for use with 12v halogen."
The transformer is doing 120 to 11.5. Even has a 5A fuse in it.

It would appear that it wouldn't be too bad to try and use that kit that cheesehead posted, right?

 

[cheesehead]

Is it an actual transformer?

Check the voltage on the track rails. If it's AC voltage, you should be okay.

Alternately, the easiest way to tell between a switched-mode supply and a linear supply is that linear power supplies need much larger transformers, making them very heavy.

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: Cheesehead
Is it an actual transformer?

Check the voltage on the track rails. If it's AC voltage, you should be okay.

Alternately, the easiest way to tell between a switched-mode supply and a linear supply is that linear power supplies need much larger transformers, making them very heavy.

This