The 120-270 is a very high speed multi-microprocessor driven board designed specifically to produce a large number of highly controlled pulse width modulated output lines.  This product is ideal for medium to large scale LED lighting and control systems.

Features:

• 80 Channels of Pulse Width Modulated Output (expandable to 528 channels)
• Smooth Shift Technology
• True Color Dimming
• PC Power Supply Interface
• Split Board Design
• Configurable for Networking
• Full Universe DMX Capable
• Non-Proprietary Serial Control Commands
• Secondary Communication Processor
• 24 Hour Real Time Clock Option (+/- 1 minute per year accuracy)
• 4 Temperatures Sensors with Fan Cooling Control
• Engineered by US Talent

The 120-270 board is populated with high speed RISC 8 bit microcontrollers.   Each PWM (pulse width modulation) controller has dedicated hardware for for 4 PWM outputs.  These are flicker and jitter free RGB/RGBA groups of outputs that can mix color and dimming intensities on the fly flawlessly.  

Smooth Shift Technology

We are coining the phase "Smooth Shift" to describe our high performance method of making immediate changing of light levels.   When a command arrives to move color Red from level 0 to level 100, we smoothly shift through all color levels between these two points in making the full transition.  The benefit is that you can produce a very fast shift that is so quick that your eye may not be able to readily see the full transition but your subconscious mind will perceive it.  This very fast and smooth transition presents an optical quality that creates a "Disney-esk" illusion of perfection rather than having a cheap LED toy effect.   You can program the time-base at which the transition occurs to suit your application.

True Color Dimming

Changing color intensities and maintaining correct color is not easy to accomplish correctly.   Each dedicated PWM controller must perform mathematics during the dimming process to calculate percentages of change to optimally maintain the correct LED output color.    Most LED lighting hardware on the market does not have this built-in capability.  Our True Color Dimming capability is also exposed in a DMX format.  That means the DMX controlling equipment doesn't do the math, our system does the math for them.  Those of you who use DMX on a regular basis will understand the full value in this feature.

PC Power Supply Interface

The LED lighting industry is weak on standards for power supplies.  We have adopted the PC AT Power Supply for use in our LED systems.  What you see on this controller board is a docking port for up to 4 power supplies.  This port is a pass-through point for most of the power that continues on to the drivers, but the controllers on this board can interact with supplies and determine if they have AC power and are ready to function.   The controller turn the power supplies on and off as needed.  This provides an exciting advancement in LED lighting power management with no extra cost in development because the engineering was already done for the PC industry.   And, when you need to replace a supply you can easily do this without fear of damaging the system.  There are no other power supplies in the open market that are more cost effective that personal computer power supplies.   Maximum power through put on these docking ports is approximately 200 amps.

Split Board Design

Not everyone needs 80 channels of output for an application.   The 120-270 board features a split plane design that allows it to be cut in two on a 4mm cut line.  The cut produces two viable products: left side with 16 channels and right side with 64 channels.   The two sides can also be joined back up electrically with a single 24 pin ribbon cable (upper header connector) to reestablish a normal board.  So, the board can actually be cut in two and stacked to fit into a tighter space.  Additionally, the base 80 channel product can accept additional right sides in a piggy-backed formation to add extra 64 channel boards to produce an ultimate system with a total of 528 channels.  This split board design provides an excellent pathway for extensive expansion.

Configurable for Networking

This controller can be networked with several hundred other LED controllers to form a large scale LED lighting control system.   The network is based on the well known and inexpensive RS485 standard.   A network can include several masters and many slaves which would total a maximum number of 256 units.

Full Universe DMX Capable

DMX is a standard in lighting control.  DMX is used mostly in commercial applications.  We support DMX but we do it in a way that is unheard of for most LED lighting equipment.   We have the ability to make use of an entire DXM universe consisting of a full 512 channels.  Most equipment on the market can not utilize the upper end of those 512 channels.    In larger commercial applications, you may really need to make full use of all your DMX channels and now you may do so this with one basic light controller product.

Non-Proprietary Serial Control Commands

In additional to DMX, the 120-270 board has been designed to respond to serial commands that can be used for complex transitions, fades and color sequencing.  These serial commands can sent from a controlling computer and be interpreted in real time or a number of these commands can be stored in flash memory for subsequent sequential execution.  You may store up to 63 scenes of programmable sequences in 8 bit non-volatile byte code.  Estimated space for all stored sequences at this time is 4,000 bytes.   This serial byte code is not proprietary and you are free to develop other systems to control this product as needed.

Secondary Communication Processor

The right side of the board contains a secondary processor that can be dedicated to non-computer controlled input.  That processor can receive commands from wall switches, motion sensors, light level sensors, etc to help direct output control in a more discrete way.   When the board is cut in two separate products, this secondary processor becomes the right side's primary processor and shift it duties to receiving all standard computer protocols as needed.

24 Hour Real Time Clock Option (+/- 1 minute per year accuracy)

In some cases you may want to control LED lighting on a time basis.  This controller board has the option of creating up to 2 real time clocks which at a minimum can keep 24 hours time accurately.    Both sides of the board can implement a real time clock if DMX is not in service.    Or in the case of DMX reception on the left side of the board, the right side of the board can keep the time.  DMX reception and time keeping is mutually exclusive on any single side of the system because DMX requires a lot of processor resources.

4 Temperatures Sensors with Fan Cooling Control

Each side of the board has 2 temperature sensors and a PWM cooling fan driver circuit.  The temperature sensors work primarily for ambient temperature readings for the entire system but each set of sensors are also strategically positioned to monitor the power docking port area.  This positioning can help in diagnosing power connection weaknesses (high resistance), which of course could produce a hot spot in that area of the board.  Temperature differentials can be flagged in software and corrective action could be taken to shut down the effected power supplies.

Engineered by US Talent

We are proud to declare that this product was custom designed with input from five American engineers.  Most of those engineers hold senior engineering status at a top US company designing high speed military single board computers.   Many of their suggestions were implemented in this product so that it did not cut any unnecessary corners.   Performance and reliability should be outstanding over many years of service.