lpmorin@gmail.com

I'm looking at driving around 200 relays in an installation. Does 

anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a 

I'm looking at driving around 200 relays in an installation. Does  
anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a  
max object to talk to it?

LP
__________________________
Louis-Pierre Morin [毛路薏]
e-mail - lpmorin@gmail.com
cell. - (514) 815-4889
skype - nirom4889


driving-many-relays

you can use the serial object to talk with it.

> I'm looking at driving around 200 relays in an installation. Does anybody

> know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a max object to

On 1/15/07, Louis-Pierre Morin  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking at driving around 200 relays in an installation. Does anybody
> know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a max object to
> talk to it?
>
> Thanks
>
> LP


> I'm looking at driving around 200 relays in an installation. Does 

> anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a max 

They have 72 outputs each and can accept MIDI or DMX as input.

Louis-Pierre Morin wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking at driving around 200 relays in an installation. Does 
> anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a max 
> object to talk to it?

Get three of these: http://botex.com/4/me72.html

Are you thinking of having enough drives from your board(s) for all 

those relays? I think in this case I would multiplex them. This needs 

a bit more circuitry, but I think with that many relays your will 

need more drive than you get from a typical I/O board anyway. You can 

then use eight address lines to access the desired relay and only 1 

data line. Simple 1 bit latches are easy to implement and the de- 

multiplexing is pretty straightforward too. Then you don't need lots 

On 15 Jan 2007, at 15:22, Louis-Pierre Morin wrote:

> anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a 

Lawrence Casserley - lawrence@lcasserley.co.uk

Lawrence Electronic Operations - www.lcasserley.co.uk

Colourscape Music Festivals - www.colourscape.org.uk

Are you thinking of having enough drives from your board(s) for all  
those relays? I think in this case I would multiplex them. This needs  
a bit more circuitry, but I think with that many relays your will  
need more drive than you get from a typical I/O board anyway. You can  
then use eight address lines to access the desired relay and only 1  
data line. Simple 1 bit latches are easy to implement and the de- 
multiplexing is pretty straightforward too. Then you don't need lots  
of output boards. Just a thought.....

> Hi,
>
> I'm looking at driving around 200 relays in an installation. Does  
> anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a  
> max object to talk to it?
>
> Thanks
>
> LP
> __________________________
> Louis-Pierre Morin [毛路薏]
> e-mail - lpmorin@gmail.com
> cell. - (514) 815-4889
> skype - nirom4889
>

Lawrence Casserley - lawrence@lcasserley.co.uk
Lawrence Electronic Operations - www.lcasserley.co.uk
Colourscape Music Festivals - www.colourscape.org.uk

Quote: lpmorin@gmail.com wrote on Mon, 15 January 2007 08:22

The fastest, easiest hack way to do this is to buy an led-display sign and hack the lines going to the lights.

The normal way is to build a board consisting of a micro-controller (avr's are nice; take a look at the www.chip45.com offers) and set up a series of multiplexers/demultiplexers depending on your task. Use [serial] to handle communication.

The "Wiring" board seems nice, and the price is alright, but I have no experience with them.

As an idea of what you will need: a matrix of 6 74374 dmux chips will require 13 inputs to control 48 outputs. The "Wiring" board has 43 outputs, so you could control at least 18 mux's controlling a total of 144 relais.

There are commercially available led-matrix controllers and decoders which can also be used to drive relais.

In any case, [serial] is usually the max tool you will need.

Quote: lpmorin@gmail.com wrote on Mon, 15 January 2007 08:22
> anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a  
> max object to talk to it?
>

The fastest, easiest hack way to do this is to buy an led-display sign and hack the lines going to the lights.  

The normal way is to build a board consisting of a micro-controller (avr's are nice; take a look at the www.chip45.com offers) and set up a series of multiplexers/demultiplexers depending on your task.  Use [serial] to handle communication.

As an idea of what you will need: a matrix of 6 74374 dmux chips will require 13 inputs to control 48 outputs.  The "Wiring" board has 43 outputs, so you could control at least 18 mux's controlling a total of 144 relais.

In any case, [serial] is usually the max tool you will need.


i think Dayton suggestion of hacking a led matrix is an excellent idea.

if your going to build your own i had the pleasure of working with the

midibox, which comes in a lot of variants.

the one i used is the MIDIO128, which allows up to 128 digital outputs per

i used them all to build a motion sensing carpet.

the forums there are full of helpful people.

the hardware is relatively cheap (you can buy an etched board and stuff it

> Quote: lpmorin@gmail.com wrote on Mon, 15 January 2007 08:22

> > anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a

> The fastest, easiest hack way to do this is to buy an led-display sign and

> The normal way is to build a board consisting of a micro-controller (avr's

> are nice; take a look at the www.chip45.com offers) and set up a series of

> multiplexers/demultiplexers depending on your task. Use [serial] to handle

> The "Wiring" board seems nice, and the price is alright, but I have no

> As an idea of what you will need: a matrix of 6 74374 dmux chips will

> require 13 inputs to control 48 outputs. The "Wiring" board has 43 outputs,

> so you could control at least 18 mux's controlling a total of 144 relais.

> There are commercially available led-matrix controllers and decoders which

> In any case, [serial] is usually the max tool you will need.

if your going to build your own i had the pleasure of working with the
midibox, which comes in a lot of variants.
the one i used is the MIDIO128, which allows up to 128 digital outputs per
midi channel.
i used them all to build a motion sensing carpet.
http://www.ucapps.de
the forums there are full of helpful people.
the hardware is relatively cheap (you can buy an etched board and stuff it
yourself)

On 1/15/07, Dayton  wrote:
>
>
> Quote: lpmorin@gmail.com wrote on Mon, 15 January 2007 08:22
> > anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with a
> > max object to talk to it?
> >
>
>
> The fastest, easiest hack way to do this is to buy an led-display sign and
> hack the lines going to the lights.
>
> The normal way is to build a board consisting of a micro-controller (avr's
> are nice; take a look at the www.chip45.com offers) and set up a series of
> multiplexers/demultiplexers depending on your task.  Use [serial] to handle
> communication.
>
> The "Wiring" board seems nice, and the price is alright, but I have no
> experience with them.
>
> As an idea of what you will need: a matrix of 6 74374 dmux chips will
> require 13 inputs to control 48 outputs.  The "Wiring" board has 43 outputs,
> so you could control at least 18 mux's controlling a total of 144 relais.
>
> There are commercially available led-matrix controllers and decoders which
> can also be used to drive relais.
>
> In any case, [serial] is usually the max tool you will need.
>

The gluion has 68 I/O pins of which 66 can be configured as outputs. 

Alternativaly you could connect simple serial shift registers, as the 

gluion's outputs are not simply on/off but can carry almost any 

digital format. I had an installation once were we connected 16 

CMOS4094 for a total of 128 outputs. So for 200 outputs you'd need 

25. Your box gets a bit bigger but overall costs are probably a bit 

On 15.01.2007, at 16:22, Louis-Pierre Morin wrote:

The gluion has 68 I/O pins of which 66 can be configured as outputs.  
So you'd need 3 of them.

Alternativaly you could connect simple serial shift registers, as the  
gluion's outputs are not simply on/off but can carry almost any  
digital format. I had an installation once were we connected 16  
CMOS4094 for a total of 128 outputs. So for 200 outputs you'd need  
25. Your box gets a bit bigger but overall costs are probably a bit  
lower.

Thanks for all of your suggestions. The idea of hacking a led matrix 

On 16-Jan-07, at 9:02 AM, Sukandar Kartadinata wrote:

> The gluion has 68 I/O pins of which 66 can be configured as 

> Alternativaly you could connect simple serial shift registers, as 

> the gluion's outputs are not simply on/off but can carry almost any 

> digital format. I had an installation once were we connected 16 

> CMOS4094 for a total of 128 outputs. So for 200 outputs you'd need 

> 25. Your box gets a bit bigger but overall costs are probably a bit 

> On 15.01.2007, at 16:22, Louis-Pierre Morin wrote:

>> I'm looking at driving around 200 relays in an installation. Does 

>> anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with 

Thanks for all of your suggestions. The idea of hacking a led matrix  
is indeed excellent.

> The gluion has 68 I/O pins of which 66 can be configured as  
> outputs. So you'd need 3 of them.
>
> Alternativaly you could connect simple serial shift registers, as  
> the gluion's outputs are not simply on/off but can carry almost any  
> digital format. I had an installation once were we connected 16  
> CMOS4094 for a total of 128 outputs. So for 200 outputs you'd need  
> 25. Your box gets a bit bigger but overall costs are probably a bit  
> lower.
>
> Let me know if you need more details.
>
> cheers,
> Sukandar
>
>
> On 15.01.2007, at 16:22, Louis-Pierre Morin wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm looking at driving around 200 relays in an installation. Does  
>> anybody know a digital out board with more than 8 or 16 outs with  
>> a max object to talk to it?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> LP
>> __________________________
>> Louis-Pierre Morin [毛路薏]
>> e-mail - lpmorin@gmail.com
>> cell. - (514) 815-4889
>> skype - nirom4889
>>
>

__________________________
Louis-Pierre Morin [毛路薏]
e-mail - lpmorin@gmail.com
cell. - (514) 815-4889
skype - nirom4889


Driving Many relays