BooBox FlexMax OPERATING MANUAL V1.1 (Aug 14, 2011) 6 Oakside Court Barrie, Ontario L4N 5V5 Tel: 1-877-815-5744 or 905-803-9274 www.frightideas.
1 2 Table of Contents Getting Familiar with your FlexMax ...................................................................................................................3! Power Supply .......................................................................................................................................................4! Selecting your Power Supply ..........................................................................................................................
1 2 Getting Familiar with your FlexMax Solid-State Outputs Speaker Outputs Audio Status LEDs SD Card Slot Line Out MP3 Vol Mix In Mix Vol Play Button Trigger Inputs DMX In/Out Power Servo Outputs Power Connector ScareMaster Connector Expansion Connector CONNECTIONS AND CONTROLS Animation outputs (12 or 24 VDC depending on power supply). 50 watt (25x2) stereo amplified audio output. These LEDs illuminate when sound is playing.
1 2 Power Supply Selecting your Power Supply The FlexMax requires a 12 or 24 volt DC power supply. When using 24 volts, the power supply must be regulated. The Flex does not ship with a power supply, you must purchase your own supply based on the required voltage and current of your outputs. We highly recommended using a 24 volt power supply.
1 2 Solid-State Outputs About the Solid-State Outputs The solid-state outputs are ideal for reliably controlling relays and solenoids. They cannot be used to directly control A.C. powered or contact-closure devices like a relay can. However, unlike relays, they have no moving parts that will wear out over time. They also have feedback suppression diodes built-in to absorb the nasty noise relays and solenoids release the moment they are turned off.
1 2 Controlling D.C. Solenoids and Relays Use only solenoids or relays rated at the same voltage as your power supply. If your device draws more than the 6 watts at 12 volts or 12 watts at 24 volts then see Controlling Large Solenoids and Relays. Controlling an A.C. Outlet Solid-state outputs cannot be used to directly control A.C. devices. These must be controlled through a relay as shown below. If you have many of these devices to control, see our Relay Board or A.C.
1 2 Controlling Large Solenoids and Relays Devices that aren’t compatible with the solid-state outputs can be controlled through a relay. If the device being controlled is a solenoid or relay, it’s recommended to install a diode or capacitor across the leads, as close to the device as possible. Use a diode if the device is D.C., or a capacitor if the device is A.C. This will absorb the feedback these devices create when they are turned off and the energy stored in their coil is released.
1 2 BooBox Expansion Connector Pinouts The expansion connector is really just another way to connect to the BooBox’s solid-state outputs. Rather than connecting a bunch of wires to the terminal blocks, a specifically made wiring harness can be plugged into the expansion connector, effectively making all these connections at once. We use this connector to make connecting to our BooBox Output Accessories quick and painless.
1 2 Trigger Inputs About the Trigger Inputs The trigger inputs are used to activate your scenes automatically when a sensor picks up movement. Trigger Inputs are activated when 5 to 24 volts A.C. or D.C. is applied to the input terminals. The inputs are opticallyisolated, which means they are electrically isolated from the sensitive electronics inside. You’ll need to supply power to the inputs in order to trigger them, in most cases this power can be “borrowed” from the power terminal block as shown below.
1 2 Optically Isolating your Trigger In situations where the FlexMax is being triggered by another controller on a separate power supply, or by a pushbutton or sensor that’s located a significant distance from the controller, it’s best to take advantage of the optical-isolation.
1 2 Audio Connections Use only stereo audio cables when connecting to the FlexMax. Line Out Connection The Line Out audio connection outputs the audio from the BooBox’s MP3 decoder. The audio is at line-level, ideal for connection to most amplifiers and powered speakers. Mix In Connection The Mix In is a line-level audio input that allows other sound sources to take advantage of the BooBox’s internal amplifier. Any audio on this connector will be mixed with the BooBox’s sounds and amplified.
1 2 Mix In Microphone Setup Microphones do not generally output a line-level audio signal like the FlexMax expects to receive at the Mix In input. To use a standard microphone you must use a mixer or microphone pre-amp to amplify the audio to linelevel before it is input into the FlexMax.
1 2 Amplified Speaker Outputs About the Internal Amplifier The FlexMax includes a 50 watt Class D stereo amplifier. This thing gets LOUD! If you start hearing the audio cut out or sound distorted before your ears start to bleed, it’s likely that your power supply is too small. To take full advantage of this amplifier, the power supply needs to be 24 volts and have at least 50 watts of power.
1 2 Four 4 ohm speakers can be connected in series. This appears as a single 8 ohm load on each speaker output.
1 2 DMX About DMX DMX is an industry standard control protocol used to control lights, strobes, fog machines, and many other exciting stage and theatre products. The FlexMax can be programmed to output DMX data so you can control any DMX device in sync with the rest of your show. DMX uses a single cable to transmit up to 512 channels of control information to many DMX devices at once.
1 2 Typical DMX Chain A typical DMX chain with a few dimmer packs might look like this. Every DMX device has an input and output, additional devices are always connected to the output of the last device. DMX Terminators If your DMX chain is really long (100 feet or more), or if you start noticing wonky behavior, you might need to terminate your DMX chain. Terminators are really just a 120 ohm resistor. They absorb the signal at the end of the cable so it doesn’t reflect and cause interference.
1 2 FlexMax Operation The FlexMax is essentially a show controller. In the case of the FlexMax, a show consists of different scenes of digital animation and sound that are played upon a trigger, timer, or end of another scene. The available scenes on the FlexMax are Ambient, and Input 1 thru Input 8. Each of these scenes can be empty, contain one scene, or contain multiple scenes that are indexed through with each trigger. It is not necessary to have a scene programmed in every location.
1 2 Sounds How the FlexMax uses Sounds When a scene is started, the FlexMax will look for an MP3 sound file to play with the scene. Which sound file it plays is based on the file’s location and filename. If a sound file is not found, the animation will be played with no sound. The length of animation you program into a particular scene is what dictates the length of play.
1 2 Programming Animation and Settings with the ScareMaster Connecting the ScareMaster The FlexMax requires your ScareMaster be at firmware version 1.20 or higher. The version number is shown briefly in the bottom-left corner the moment the ScareMaster powers up. If you don’t have at least version 1.20, you can download the latest version from our website’s Product Support section. The Basics Idle Mode Once the ScareMaster connects you should see a screen similar to the one above.
1 2 Selecting a Scene On the screen you should see the current scene you are editing in the bottom-left corner. "In1-0" is input 1’s first scene, to select another scene, hold the PLAY button for a few seconds then use the A slider to scroll through the available scenes. The current length of the scene is shown in the bottom-right corner as you scroll through. Let go of PLAY when you see the scene you’d like to edit.
1 2 Advanced Scene Options Each scene has options that can be adjusted to change how the BooBox behaves while the particular scene plays. To get to these settings, go into the menu by holding ENABLE and tapping PLAY, then scroll down to Scene Menu and press ENTER. Volume L / Volume R (0 – 25, default 25) Volume of the MP3 decoder’s left and right audio channels. Often one channel is used for a character’s voice and another for ambient sounds.
1 2 BooBox Setup The BooBox has some general settings that can be adjusted using the ScareMaster. To get to these settings, go into the menu by holding ENABLE and tapping PLAY, then scroll down to BooBox Setup and press ENTER. Timer (None – 31:59, default None) Use this to trigger the Input 1 scene on a schedule. The time you set here is the time between shows. N.C. Inputs (N.O., N.C., default N.O.) Each trigger can be set to respond to a normally open (N.O.) or normally closed (N.C.) trigger. N.C.
1 2 Troubleshooting Problem None of the outputs or sounds are working ScareMaster LCD says “Detecting BooBox” All outputs stay on OR Outputs don’t work anymore Sound cuts out when using the internal amplifier TROUBLESHOOTING TABLE Solution - Make sure the number of DMX channels on your current scene is at least 5. - Make sure you have a valid SD card inserted in the BooBox. - The solid-state driver chip most likely needs to be replaced. See our website’s Replacement Parts section for more details.
