Halloween Light Show – Parallel Port Relay Controller Based

Check out this cool Parallel Port Relay Controller Based Halloween Light Show it shows what some creative thinking and a bit of code and hardware can produce.

“The most important thing you are gonna need is the controller. There are many out there, but for this tutorial (its easiest and cheapest) we are gonna use the kit74 parallel relay board. 30$, 35$ assembled.

This circuit is going to interface (plug into) with the printer port, and based on what you tell it todo (using software), it will OPEN and or CLOSE each of the relays, completing or disconnecting each of the 8 circuits. (turning things you hook into it, ON and OFF) I made my own software kinda… Ill show you how I did it this past halloween…

I first wrote a peice of software to record the music sycning… You tap the space bar to the song and it outputs the millisecond delays in between the beats. here or compiled here is the source for that (Windows/linunx). This program is used to record the delays inbetween the beats of the music you want, you will use these delays in the second program to actually turn the lights on and off.

Then I wrote/copy pasted code (credit goes to http://www.hytherion.com/beattidp/) to write those delays to the relay board. windows. This software will use the delays you recorded in the first program (along with the light configurations you tell it) to display your show! (by default I tapped out “shave and a hair cut” for the test program) (you will need this dll to run the windows version (Xp says its not safe to allowe Ring 3 to parallel ports))”