Kevin's 3/4 NST build

[dustyfro]

What's the soccer ball thing that you put on the top of your lamp for the dome?  It's looking like I may end up Franken-TARDISing an old school lamp on my new series build, and I'm looking for the doo-hickies to make it.

[Theta Sigma]

What's the soccer ball thing that you put on the top of your lamp for the dome?  It's looking like I may end up Franken-TARDISing an old school lamp on my new series build, and I'm looking for the doo-hickies to make it.

It's the plastic dome that was cannibalized from a battery powered "touch light".  The one I bought just happened to be painted like a soccer ball for a kids room. 

[Rassilons Rod]

Ooh, I have 4 of those

Now I know how I'm going to do mine!

-Marc

[karsthotep]

BRRILLIAAANNNNTTT!!  That looks awesome kev,   As Napolean Dynamite says....You have skillz!!

Karst

[Doctor Iz]

Karst and I both used the same cannibalized plastic dome from a touch lamp... This worked out rather brilliant...

Jon~

[Theta Sigma]

My homemade lamp flasher!  2 Luxeon III White LED's.  12VDC power supply.

[Dematerialiser]

Hi Klippard

That's a really nice lighting effect - would you be able to do a bit of a show-and-tell about how it's made? What's the controller for the flashing and how big those leds are, etc? It has a really nice dimming effect, which I didn't expect from LED's! Anyway, nice one!

cheers
Chris

[Theta Sigma]

Hi Klippard

That's a really nice lighting effect - would you be able to do a bit of a show-and-tell about how it's made? What's the controller for the flashing and how big those leds are, etc? It has a really nice dimming effect, which I didn't expect from LED's! Anyway, nice one!

cheers
Chris

Chris,

The controller is in a very rough "prototype" form at the moment.  I'm not quite happy with the way it works yet, but when I finalize the design, I will be posting a schematic on how to make one.  The LED's are 3 Watt's each and there are 2.  I think I'm going to add a 3rd.  They are called side-emitting Luxeon III's.  They only drawback to them is that they have to be attached to heat sinks to prevent over-heating. 

Regarding the driver circuit, it's just a triangle wave generator being fed into a power transistor, which ramps the LED voltage up and down.  I'm going to add some heavier components, as the flash frequency seems to change as the unit warms up.  I'm also going to add a current regulator to protect the LED's as well.

I hope to finalize the design very soon, and I will certainly share with everyone once I get some decent drawings made up.

Kevin

[karsthotep]

Wow. Kevin, once again your technical expertise is astounding.  I honestly wish I had that kind of electrical know how, but thank you for sharing the info with the group we really appreciate it.  For a proto it still works pretty darn good.  I am looking forward to more updates

Karsten

[throgmorton]

Thats a fantastic build and the light is awesome as it is.

I'm having probs with my lighting circuit got one of those  kit things from Maplin which doesn't seem to work as I imagined it would??

Chris E.

[Dematerialiser]

Thanks Kevin - sounds like you've got a good amount of experience with electronics! I'm a bit of a hack with that kind of thing at best. I wish you could buy this stuff off the shelf..! 

[Theta Sigma]

Finally put the finishing touches on the flasher unit.  I'll be posting schematics and plans this week as soon as I can get them drawn up.  Here's a video of it working in the broad daylight, and in the dark.  I'm not too impressed with the daylight shots, but the night shots look wonderful.  Comments?

[atomicgraph]

nice video! get sound and the lighting effects are perfect!

[Theta Sigma]

Hello all:

At long last I have something to share to help you build your own flasher units like mine:



The bottom side of the board looks like this.  You can make 2 units from one board if you want.



If anyone is interested an a proper electronic schematic, I'll be happy to draw one up.  However,  I thought this type of plan would be easier to follow for those not experienced with electronics.

If anyone is interested in commissioning me to build them one, I'd be happy to do so for the cost of parts and shipping, plus a modest fee for my time.

I'm also going to be working on a unit that will use 12V halogen lamps instead of high power LED's, but that's down the road a ways.

Kevin

[Theta Sigma]

Here's a pic of the assembled flasher unit: