found my camera, i left it at work. I'll post some pics of the 3 footers with a possible updated new layout at some point. I had it figured for 4 and 6 foot lengths but home depot is a bitch and only had 3 footers.

I got 10 .25"x4 (read 3.5")x 3 foot boards of aspen wood. Couldn't find .5" or .25" bigger than 3 footers.

Going to make a mock module out of this and see how it works and expands. Need to get a table jigsaw, figure that will be easier than a router ... which i have also.

mmmm, more power tools.

I seem to have misplaced my camera. Here would be where I'd show the freshly prepped 100 LEDs ready for the end game for soldering but I'm pretty sure my retarded ass left my camera at work.

Using the .046" shrink wrap is way better than the bigger crap I used. And now I have about 96 feet of it left over since I only used it on the last 100 LEDs I'll need.

And now to get my drink on in style ... by doing keg stands.

just did 96 more LEDs suckers. I've run out of the ones I've already pre cut and what not. And I just ran out of Lost Season 1 episodes too.

Damn it. Need to find more TV shows on DVD ... I do have 24 (haven't seen seaons 1-3) ... Jack Bauer ... you are my hero. Then again, I only have maybe 3 to 4 more hours of LED soldering.

Why can't I find places that order lumber online? Hell, I ordered chinese food tonight online yet can't find a place that sells lumber.

ATTENTION LUMBER JACKS: LEARN THE INTERNET. It is your friend.

This public announcement has been brought to you by GI Joe.

Gene Foulk contacted me a bit back about his project, LED Cube that has 512 LEDs in it.

I checked out some of his movies and I have to say, it maybe an addition to my cube at work.

He also mentioned that using a respirator will help with the fumes. But since I only have a few more (200) LEDs to go, I figure why bother. I just need a fan / not breath when soldering and remember I only have 800 more solder joints to do.

I'm a page rank 5. Guess after learning Search Engine Optimization at work actually helped.

update:
looks like not all of Google's servers have been updated ... damn you google for getting my hopes up.

just soldered up 80 more. Figured out a nice little process to it.

Well, I've been busy. At work over at SpringCM, content management on demand, we have a production build coming up and I've been helping out doing Search Engine Optimization along with a lot of User Interface work. Something about creating a server side control that does everything client side but is actually fetched via Ajax that makes me smile since it is so overly complexe for such a simple thing. (yes, there is a actual good reason why I opted for that solution ).

Either next weekend or the following weekend I need to A> give my mom my taxes (yes she still does them but then again, she is a CPA) B> fix my dad's computer ( I could have done this a Christmas had he not said "I got it working again") and C> make fun of my brother. D> buy the wood

Got 46 more. Look at that progress bar go up.

Cause I don't want to do soldering right now and I still need to buy the wood.

I have a working algorithm. have I said today ... damn I'm good. (actually I did multiple times at work ( I kid you not) ).

Now time to optimize the FFT audio transform for peak performance and tweak it so it fits my purpose rather than its current implementation.

Think there is something weird there, doesn't work, going to attempt 2nd approach at this. Could be my averaging code though.

Lookie what I just found.

bar = ( ( val - min ) / (max - min) ) * win );

bar: the height of your bar in pixels
val: the value of the current frequency bucket
min: the minimum possible value of a bucket
max: the maximum possible value of a bucket
win: the height of your analyser window in pixels

All the math, none of the fuss of creating it myself.

160 done out of 448.

228 left.

solder fumes suck.

Waiting the movie however is funny. Now to add the ball game to our never ending amount of stupid games.

Finding 6 foot lengths may be hard. I can find 4 footers easy

One cool idea for building out the floor ... Lego blocks.

The solution to all life's problems.

Also I spec'ed out exactly how many 4 and 6 foot lengths of wood I'll need.

That number is:
- 56 four foot lengths
- 25 6 foot lengths

I want 1/2 inch or thinner wood also.

This current number configuration maximizes the ablity to inner lock the modules. Now to find a place that will lemme buy them for about 3-4 bucks a pop.

Got 64 LEDs offically ready to blink to life. Solder fumes getting to me so saying F-it and going to Dave's apartment to watch the superbowl and do some light coding.

If I calculated the amount of beer I've drank while building this, it is a scary yet amazing number.

DONE! All done ... FINALLY! 16 columns x 28 rows x 4 wires. 1728 wires made into 448 wires.

Regarding Joel's Comment about LED choice

Hey Clint,

Nice ploycarbonate! - thankfully i already have that sourced here in the UK. I just want to ask for your comments on LED selection. I have looked at the ones you selected and im very tempted to go ahead with the same�? im just interested if youve had any other thoughts since you made your selection. I think the "origional" one used 3 seperate LED's but this seems like alot of work to me!

Any comments?

Keep up the good work!

Joel.

Would I pick the same LEDs ? Depends on how much money I'd want to spend. I like perfection so I'd take a different route. I'd most likely create a daughter board system with surface mounted LEDs. Here I'd have to research for the spread / brightness / power consumption of the LEDs but I'd probly end up with 4 corners and maybe a Red, Green, Blue LED or maybe a combo, I don't know. Research is needed for that. Along with seeing how big of a spread I need for the LEDs.

I'd also switch up how I did my wiring. I'd use ribbon cable and something like these types of headers, but single rows. I didn't know about the connector that can be used on both ends when I initially started on the dance floor project.

$1300 dollars worth of materials. Cost of Materials for the Disco Dance floor has been updated

6 - 4 foot by 4 foot at 3/8 inch Polycarbonate
2 - 2 oot by 4 foot at 3/8 inch Polycarbonate
1 - 4 foot by 4 foot at .236 inch Acrylic

Why did I buy the Acrylic? Because I'm deathly afraid of someone hurting my TV. This will mount to my rack as a nice protective barrier.

Email time, this one from Joel from the country that gave birth to the country that everyone loves to hate ... except me and Chuck Norris, America.

Hi Clint,

Amazing project, I'm thinking about doing it too ! I have downloaded your software and was just wondering if it was configurable for a floor made up of 7 modules x 2 modules (28 x 32 tiles). Is it possible that the modules are treated as one big floor? I am no programmer so if the answer is obvious then I apologize.

Also, how are ddf animations created? have you plans to create any in addition to the ones on the MIT website?

One last thing when creating GIF's does it work out that 1 tile = 1 pixel or similar, I would like to display text on my floor and was wondering the best way to go about it.

Thanks in advance,
Joel Hauxwell.

You can configure it so your modules are 2x32 tiles and have 14 modules (DDF boards). My floor is 4x16 and 7 modules.

DDF animations are created via a MatLab script. Since I've never used that �? I build in animated Gif support. Washington U has some DDF files that are cool but you need to ask for them since they haven't posted them.

Yes, 1 tile = 1px. The software is smart enough to resize the image to the size of your floor. Photoshop does a far better job at resizing but the resize is a last ditch effort incase the size does not match your floor. Might in the future configure this.

Soon I'll add in scrolling text / Music support but I'm still in the process of building my floor so all about time management.

Couple minutes later ...

Clint,

Thanks for your help just to clarify, how do I configure for 14 modules of 4x16 tiles to make one big floor?�? my modules are arranged in a 2x7 grid.

Hope this helps. I appreciate your time.

Joel.

Each DDF board can support 64 lights. 2*32 = 64. So you create 'modules' that are 2x32 and start layering to get your final size of 28x64 (which is twice the size of my floor). From there, the XML config file will handle the rest.

You'll have 32 of these in the configuration file

<ComPort>COMX</ComPort>

You'll have to manually verfy that 'Com4' is the DDF module you want position 1.

<ddf>
   <configuration>
      <AnimationDirectory>C:\Documents and Settings\Clint\Desktop\animation</AnimationDirectory>
      <DisableComPortWrite>true</DisableComPortWrite>
      <BaudRate>57600</BaudRate>
      <TilesPerRow>32</TilesPerRow>
      <RowsPerModule>3</RowsPerModule>
      <ComPorts>
         <ComPort>COM4</ComPort>
         <ComPort>COM5</ComPort>
         ...
         <ComPort>COM36</ComPort>
      </ComPorts>
   </configuration>
</ddf>

Ok, just finished up the 7 foot wires ... that leaves me with the 4.5 foot wires left. 28 more meer wires.

NOW that leaves me with 404 LEDs left to solder up.

AND I need to build the floor.

This is a lot of work for a dance floor. SO close I can taste the polyester.