Looking to get an LED status light made for error visibility in our lab. The quote for a top mounted solution from Hamilton without support is around $4k that seems to me rather steep.
Is there a way to do this with RGB controller instead and interface it with the Hamilton methods?
I’m not sure if you heard of the Hamilton instrument sending out an email on certain steps? It’s pretty easy to set up and you don’t need to DIY anything. Just add in the programming steps.
Yes, if you can interface with any external client through email, slack, HTTP, etc, you can parse that message to trigger an LED switch.
Also I hope it’s okay if I change the title of your thread to be more specific 
In China, we can buy an LED indicator with USB interface from taobao.com, which is really cheap, only 108 CNY(less than 16 dollars). The LED indicator can be controlled with c++/C#/python, and I think it can fulfil your requirement. Write an application to turn in on, and set it to “Program Execution” under error setting of Hamilton System Configuration Editor. When error in STAR or Venus, the application can be executed and LED will be turned on.
So I think you can search thing like this.
yeah we are already doing email/slack notifications but it would be more ideal to have some step by step on how to interface with an led light. Everywhere I search I get mixed responses on this.
Currently we do not have developer bandwidth to help with this so I was hoping to get something I can do myself.
Ah! I would look into raspberry pi tutorials then. I am 90% sure there are Pis that ship with LED lights and tutorials for setting it all up. You will just need to run a script on the Pi that is responsive to email or slack and triggers the LED.
yeah this might be the way we go about it. I am talking with our automation team to see if there is anything in the Venus software that we can use as a trigger as well to see if we can do it OS side. If not I may end up using Node Red or AutoHotKey to see if I can make a sequence of steps that sends and LED signal based on the email msg.
I managed to find this USB Stack Light - In Stock – Stack-Light.com
which seems like it would suit our needs.
A little late to the party on this thread but the Stars have a set of outputs with fine PWM control through the accessory panel via firmware commands.
Great for triggering 5V relays.
If you’re interested let me know and I can provide more info.
