70s Style Color Organ

[Fotobysw]

I found this thing on e-bay some yrs ago and it still works. It is a 4 channel unit with High, Med High, Med, and Low with the ability to set the response rate. I know a little about the unit because the builder put the info inside as to who it was built for and when. It was built in 1974 for a club in LA. It works great and will handle up to 1k watts per channel. It has a big heat sink inside and a small fan. Here are s couple of pic's of it.
I know it dates me but I can remember when there was a complete wall of these at DisneyLand in the America Sings building that they used to entertain the people before the show started. It was quite something back then.
Steve Wall

[buffo]

Not quite a light organ, but this picture from SELEM 2008 shows an LED display (behind Aaron) that James Lehman built himself. The multi-colored LED squares would change color on their own, based on an internal timer. I'm sure you could connect them to a PIC and control them in groups to simulate a light organ though.



Adam

[greenalien]

One way to approach building one of these would be to get hold of an old Pulsar Masterpiece 108 lighting desk and a 4 or 6 way analogue dimmer pack. You can pick up a good, used 108 for under £200 and they have superb 4-channel sound to light built in; they can also control both analogue and DMX dimmers so are very versatile. Analogue dimmers have rather fallen out of favour so can be had for very little money. Ebay is a good place to start looking...

[Mattatya]

lol, Your never to old or young to stare at color organ for hours. I still have the original Heath kit color organ from radio shack. I am really bummed though as I lent out the instruction kit manual to someone interested in recreating it and never heard from him again. But I still have the light.

Recently I turned it on and the power sensor knob stripped so it turns on but I can lower or raise the sensitivity but when that is fixed it runs and looks 100%

I don't have it in front of me to take pics but it roughly 80x80 inches by 3 inches deep and has a star-burst pastern similar to the star-burst you see on the ceiling of old skate decks and walls. It has two speaker wires that plug into the back of amps or speakers.

I have to get that out again and fix the sensitivity knob.

[Stuka]

lol, Your never to old or young to stare at color organ for hours. I still have the original Heath kit color organ from radio shack. I am really bummed though as I lent out the instruction kit manual to someone interested in recreating it and never heard from him again. But I still have the light.

Recently I turned it on and the power sensor knob stripped so it turns on but I can lower or raise the sensitivity but when that is fixed it runs and looks 100%

I don't have it in front of me to take pics but it roughly 80x80 inches by 3 inches deep and has a star-burst pastern similar to the star-burst you see on the ceiling of old skate decks and walls. It has two speaker wires that plug into the back of amps or speakers.

I have to get that out again and fix the sensitivity knob.

THAT'S THE ONE!!

I got mine direct from Heathkit, and remember having a WONDERFUL time imbedding all those frickin' lights in the interior panel.

Still, it was cool!!!!

[Mattatya]

I know this thread is super old but I found some Color Organ assembly instructions



I need to pick up Part P1 on the kit assembly page to get mine back up and running.

This thread is old but did you end up making something out of your idea with the lamina

project?



Here is a couple other good reads from Popular Electronic

Really crappy service manual for the Hamond color Organ
http://www.archive.org/stream/Hammon...art21_djvu.txt


http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/Popular...PE_Jul1966.htm
http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/Popular...PE_Sep1969.htm
http://www.tinaja.com/glib/musclrog.pdf

[solderhead]

Hi guy's (and girls) Found a seller on Ebay that regularly sells color organs. I bought one and it seems to work great. You can see them on youtube if you type dynamodob in the seach bar.