Light normalization questions

[rclark]

I'm getting to the point to where I'm thinking about what lights I'm using and how to normalize them.  The easy solution is to buy lights that are already on the list, but I have a pile of stuff lying around that I would like to use in the short term.

RJ, do you publish the specifications for your normalization table?  I was wondering if I could dummy up something that would work better than the default table, even if it wasn't as good as sending you the string for testing. I'm pretty sure you don't want to mess with my previous year's leftovers!

[rrowan]

What lights do you have?

regular mins or some brand of LEDs

There might already be a curve in the drop down that will work for you.

I think RJ has the file encrypted so the reverse engineering folks just don't copy his work and pass it off as their own stuff.

(I could be wrong of course )

Cheers

Rick R.

[rclark]

I have a bunch of stuff in the barn that I bought last year on cutout, and I don't even remember what the brands are.  They tend to be standard mini incandescents, so one of the supplied curves will probably work for those.

I'm currently working on a (very) small Halloween display for a trunk-or-treat event.  I'm thinking single C7 bulbs per channel in pumpkins.  I'm seeing that the different colors of the same brand bulb have significantly different characteristics.  For example, blue turns on at about 15 and maxes at 255, red turns on at 3 and hits the blue max at 176.  I would like to do a dumb linear curve between the observed unnormalized min and max points.

If the format is proprietary, I guess I can't do that. 

[RJ]

If you mail me the strings I will normilize them and send them back. There currently is no program to manual create a curve. The idea behind normalizing is to make true match curves for all of them not just what looks ok so it take a device to do it well. that way later when you add other lights the also match. If I am making sense.  It is not really a secret on the curves just not a manual setup to make them at least at this point.


RJ

[rclark]

Thanks for the info, RJ. Any plans for a light-normalizer kit? 

Once I get some serious quantities of lights, I will send you some samples if necessary.  I can see from the video and from my testing that the normalization makes a huge difference. What I'm doing now is not worth your time for sure, so I'll hold off until I have some real hardware.  I can see a real incentive to buy what you already have in the tables - I hope the light vendors have realized that! You might want to add a purchase link field to the XML file ...

If you ever do publish the normalization table specification, I will probably take a whack at a dumb program to generate them, but it isn't terribly critical.

[aERonAUtical96]

RJ question...

I'm curious, have you noticed if the curve for a particular brand of lights differs from color to color?  I would assume it would, but didn't know.

[RJ]

Leds, Yes some very much different due to the voltage difference. For example in some the reds come on at very low levels and the Blues come on much later, ect. 

standard minis, ect. The color is painted on so for the same brand it does not matter. Most are fairly close on between brands but some of the energy saving ones vary from the standard ones.

RJ