Hey Everyone,
since I have a lot of time lately due to our current global medical situation, I finally wanted to start a proper Project.
I want to build some hit reactive drum lights. There are some projects already out there, but I want to do it a little bit more professional. (custom PCBs; proper cases, cabeling, connectors)
I have planned to put a MCU on every drum (5 in total, headroom would be very nice). It would be responsible for controlling an adressable LED strip (planning to use the BTF2815 at the moment) and reading the signals of a piezo sensor, wich is mounted to the drum head.
Now comes the tricky part. I want to configure those MCUs (LED color, sustain time, whatever else I come up with) from a MCU on the end of a bus, that connects them all. It would be a nice feature, to be able to transmit the drum hits to if configured, so all drums light up, when I hit the Basedrum for example. For this reason I am planning to use a can bus.
My problem is, that I also want to power everything through the same Cable. I think, I would need 12V and 5A to be on the save side. The total cable run of all the daisy chained devices would probably be 6m long. I have been looking for some hours and have not found any cable, that could transfer 5A and a CAN bus reliably. D-SUB is standard for CAN, but i think it couldn't handle the power from what I have read. Cables that could, don't have twisted pairs. There are some hybrids, but they are all custom and pricy. I would like to use something commonly available if possible. Most of that suff does not give you a current rating and you could only guess what is inside those cables. I would also be fine with putting the Connectors on myself if necessary.
It would be cool if someone knew the perfect cable, but I would also be open to change the protocol or step down the voltage if that helps.
I hope, I have given you the information you need and that someone can give me some inspiration.
With kind regards
Jobadro