For some random reason I ended up repairing fairground lighting controllers when I was younger (and still do from time to time.) The systems were generally not very well designed and I inevitably ended up building a new system that evolved rapidly into a neat modular one that ended up being used in many British and American rides and themeparks.
Although I don't build controllers any more due to the downturn in the British ride industry, I still have some of the original boards I used which are kept as spares for existing customers.
This video is an insight into how they worked and interconnected.
Although I don't build controllers any more due to the downturn in the British ride industry, I still have some of the original boards I used which are kept as spares for existing customers.
This video is an insight into how they worked and interconnected.
Can I ask why triacs and not SSR. Was it more to do with cost? As now most SSR’s contain the opto isolator. Thanks 🙂
Weird thing is I've been watching your content for years now and never seen this one. But found it after searching for "fairground lighting control". I'm researching a new scale model project for myself. I'm a Ghost Train nut! So yeah I'm looking into replicating in scale the way a traditional Ghost train sign is animated. Obviously using LED's and some sort of programable controller. I'm no coder so I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction of an off the shelf DIY solution…? Love your content by the way. Always learning!!
Did you ever work for M&D's (Taylors) or Whites
I think this could still have a market in the US
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This is super cool background info to learn. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Clive do you still have any of these pcb controllers left ? It would be good for a project I have in mind as I can’t find anything similar on the market.
Where can I get hold of one of these?
Hi Clive, I've been clover subscriber for a while now and it has taken me some time to find this as I seen it not long after you did this. I am looking for a controller for my lights, I have bought 5 X 12 lamp strips of the cabochon lights and I want them to do patterns or move randomly. Can you help at all please? I would appreciate and pay for any service you recommend. Thank you 😁
QuickBasic Rules OK! I used that a lot back in the day, along with Lotus 123 and DataEase for DOS. There's a program called "QuickBasic" avaiable today to run under Windows, but all the keywords are case-sensitive! Good old progress.
Those are amazing. You made them robust, safer, modular and easily fixed. If i had to write thst much code, it would take days. If not, more. Great job Clive
This was a great video – I design tech for event installations, very similar to fairground tech in many ways, and use a LOT of the same ideas for protection, human error when installing etc. Totally different world to consumer electronics 😁