my vote would be IEC socket.

You can always find more of them if one gets damaged, and if it gets yanked on it just unplugs. If you are feeling fancy go these http://www.homanndesigns.com/store/images/iec_power.jpg with a switch and a fuse built in because why not

For our display we had 12x 3mm blue LED's per segment to get it relatively even, so 252 LED's plus I think 4 per dot in the divider.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

Thanks to the tip on Plastix - they have just what I need.

Good point about the IEC socket not breaking.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

The driver controls and time display boxes are taking shape:



I wish coding was that easy!
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

very cool
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<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls

The arena lights are taking shape; all the metal and most of the wood is cut & drilled and the only material left to buy is the polycarb front cover.



Once the paint has dried more, I can screw the wood down to the backing aluminium, wire up the LEDs and test it out. Watching paint dry really is the most boring thing ever...
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

love that light …and that timer thing
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

The lights are really just an excuse for me to use more hammertone paint - I would paint the entire house with it if I was allowed to.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

The first light is finished and the next three are not far behind. The light is noticeably brighter than the commercial LED tubes I have in the workshop and much brighter than a dual fluro fitting. The coverage is pretty good too - four fittings should be enough to cover the whole arena.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

That's awesome nick. One more thing to cross of my huge list of things I would like to improve on the arena.

Steve
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

No problems - now the pressure is on Miles to shoot some awesome high-speed videos .
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Hmm, these LEDs get pretty hot:



Over 60 degrees after several hours. That's 40 Degrees over the ambient temperature. Perhaps I should add some U channel to the back of the remaining lights?
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

perhaps we turn them off when battles aren't on?
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

Absolutely - I'd like to find a DMX switch that will make the lights part of the intelligent light show. Each light is using around 90W and there is no point frying the audience's eyeballs between matches.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

So a three channel DMX relay controll board only costs $19.95. Let's see if I can get that working in time . The other channels can be used to control a smoke machine and maybe some lower powered coloured arena lights; something to think about for the future.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Yep i reckon if we cut the leds between long breaks would be fine especially if we have the fancy moving lights still going. Nick Can ya drill some holes in the top of that metal led holders?…that might vent some heat.
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015