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Circuit Bending Nintendo (NES) - Use transistors as switches?

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Another term for it is breaking stuff.

in my case it's true : /
i'll build stuff from scratch... repair existing things... but bending is breaking as far as i'm concerned.

there's certain aspects of 'bending' methodologies which i very much appreciate however:
modification through experimentation, hands-on -- learn by doing.
the attitude of fun can be a good thing and can open doors for people.
 
in my case it's true : /
i'll build stuff from scratch... repair existing things... but bending is breaking as far as i'm concerned.

I can also see how breaking stuff can still be fun, though. For example, pyrotechnics are exploding pieces of paper and cardboard. Setting them off breaks them, but it's still fun! :D

Yeah, it was a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea ;) :D
 
I plan only to have one bend active at any one time. I have discovered around 20 bends which all share one common point, making life a little easier. I demo'd this using a rotary switch the other day; the common point attached to the pole, 12 other points connected to the remaining tags on the rotary. So when i turned through the rotary switch, the image cycled through different glitches.

I'd be happy with 5 different bends in the final setup, using 5 different relays. I'd program the max patch so that when the volume level rises above a certain threshold, the bend points are randomly cycled through, at high speed. So no 2 bends would ever be active at the same time, but while the volume remained above that threshold, the image would be constantly flickering with different glitches. The exact programming is no important, i can flesh it out pretty easily. Activating the relay switches from the arduino is the important part.

And Irbirb i'll be using max during the show for other stuff anyway, so it seems logical to use it for this. I know it well and make it do exactly what i want it to.
 
I can also see how breaking stuff can still be fun, though. For example, pyrotechnics are exploding pieces of paper and cardboard. Setting them off breaks them, but it's still fun! :D

oh for sure! ... don't get me wrong, getting a bontempi organ to sound like a death-metal drummer was totally fun .... but unfortunately short-lived ... there's a big reason that it's generally the older machines like NES and SK10 which are good bending targets: they are just more flexible in that regard.

Yeah, it was a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea ;) :D

not such a stretch... i've had a LED launch itself like a rocket out of a breadboard before!
breaking stuff ON PURPOSE?
hell-yeah! bring on the robot-battles and monster-truck rallies : )
 
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BTW guys, was mucking around on this tonight and got it working just using a relay and nothing else. The two bend points connected to two legs of the relay, the arduino ground connected to the necessary leg, and the digital output of the arduino connected to the remaining leg. When the output pin is ON it supplies 5V to the relay, which is enough to energise the coil and cause the switch to close. I set this up on max so that when i clapped, the 'bend' turned ON and OFF quickly, causing a flicker effect. Pretty cool!

I'm getting some 4066 and 4053 chips tomorrow so will have a go using them also; they should be smoother than the relay.

I cannot see why I would want to add a transistor to my circuit right now!? As suggested on the arduino website.
 
BTW guys, was mucking around on this tonight and got it working just using a relay and nothing else. The two bend points connected to two legs of the relay, the arduino ground connected to the necessary leg, and the digital output of the arduino connected to the remaining leg. When the output pin is ON it supplies 5V to the relay, which is enough to energise the coil and cause the switch to close. I set this up on max so that when i clapped, the 'bend' turned ON and OFF quickly, causing a flicker effect. Pretty cool!

I'm getting some 4066 and 4053 chips tomorrow so will have a go using them also; they should be smoother than the relay.

I cannot see why I would want to add a transistor to my circuit right now!? As suggested on the arduino website.

I believe this is what we were suggesting--simply using a relay instead of a transistor.
I'm glad to hear of your success! :) Maybe you could post a video?
Have fun!
Der Strom
 
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the site suggests that transistor for relays that need more than 5v to switch..... but still consider protection diode(right??)
 
Thanks guys! I never realised you meant JUST use a relay and NOTHING ELSE, haha. Such a simple setup :) Yeah I'll post a video once I get something interesting programmed! Yes i think i should still use a diode for safety; does it matter much what value of diode?

I got some of these 4053 chips today; there's an information page as well as pdf data sheet here 4053 - Triple 2-channel analog multiplexer/demultiplexer (triple SPDT analog switch) - msarnoff.org ChipDB

From that info, can anyone hazard a guess at how i might construct my setup using one of these instead of a relay? I know it will be possible to control more than one 'bend' from this chip, but having 1 bend work will be a start! So again, i want NES point A going to one leg, NES point B going to another, ground from arduino going to the correct leg, and a digital pin from the arduino (used as the 5V control, or 'switching' voltage) going to the correct leg. So that when I apply the control voltage, NES point A is connected to NES point B.

I'm trying to figure this out on my own, but my inexperience tells! If anyone could guide me a little i'd appreciate it loads :)

Jordan
 
PS I also have some 4066 chips: https://ics.nxp.com/products/hef/datasheet/hef4066b.pdf

The exact chip name is HEF4066BP

Would these be any better/worse to use?

it is what mr. stearns was using (the source of the examples you posted)
**broken link removed**

i can't see you needing much else really,

pins 5, 6, 12, and 13 of each chip would be connected to your arduino;
1, 4, 8, 11 to your common-bend-point; 2, 3, 9, 10 to your bend-points for example.

pin 7 to ground, pin 14 to your +5.

pin 5 controls the switch between 4 <-> 3
pin 6 controls the switch between 8 <-> 9
and so on and so forth.

everything else can be done in software right?

with 20 bends and one common point, you might get all kinds of weird interactions when using bi-directional switches, which i guess is what you want... might depend on what the common point actually is!
personally i'd try a potentiometer on that common point to see if it affects the effect
 
I done this last night and it works :)

The 4066 is made up of 4 independent switches. When i added the wires for the first switch (the 2 bend points, and the control voltage) it worked well. The glitch looked the same when activated as it does when i simply use croc clips to connect the two points directly on the circuit. But when I added the wires for the next switch, BOTH glitches looked different when activated - they were activate independently btw, not at the same time. It's as if having the second switch 'in place' has perhaps changed the resistance on the common point and thus affects the output.

So with 4 switches in place the outputs are all dramatically different to when they were isolated. Its not the biggest problem because it still looks cool. But when I activated glitches separately, each different glitch was distinct. Now they all look fairly similar.

As I said, i think this might be because every switch shares a common point - so Bend Point A is the same for all 4 switches.

I think i'll set up another 4066 chip using 8 different bend points, so each of the 4 switches has 2 unique points.
 
oh, interesting. i wonder why that is.
so what is this common-point? is it GND? +9 volts? something else? an input or output from your graphics chip perhaps?

i'd guess is that some strategically placed resistors and/or caps will clear up your issues... tough to say though.
 
The common point is one of the pins on one of the graphics chips inside the NES.

This point, when connected to many different other points, creates many different glitch effects.

It's not toooooo big a deal. What kind of places should I try resistors/capacitors? As i said, it's workable in this state. Any improvements would be great tho!
 
jeez, i don't know.
i'd maybe try making one of your bends with a 1meg pot. you might find a kind of threshold value for where the glitch occurs and if different resistances alter the quality of the glitch.
 
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