Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Led Lighting help.

Status
Not open for further replies.

More Coffee

Member
I'm planning another R/C boat build ,I'm in the process of establishing the detail's.
One detail in particular is the lighting. I plan to use SMD 0605 (ithink) in an enclosure that well mimic fluorescent lights there well be approx. 15 lamps with 3 leds per lamp,, There well also be about a dozen led lights that will mimic Metal Halide lamps-possible 5mm clear ultra bright white,

What I would like to do is put together a circuit that would allow the led lights react in a manner similar to the fluorescence and metal halide @ cold start up.
Some lamps flickering and such with the metal halides flickering and growing brighter..as the warm up

The length of time from on to everything lit up would ideally be about 8-12 seconds, the number of channels would hopefully be 10 or more or less, I don't need random start-up because that would include some sort of micro-processor I'm sure.


I don't know where to start,
I know I'll need a 555, maybe a shift register? , chattering relay circuit?
Id like to keep it old fashioned using old logic and cheap stuff.
 
Do you want each bulb to flicker and start different than another? If they all flicker together it will look funny.
 
Hi.
Thanks
No ..they wont flicker all together ,some will fire right up and be on others would have a slightly different on cycle,no different that turning on all the lights in a room at one time.
I was hoping for the one that flicker 10 channels would do well, 10 sets that flicker to on in a different cycle,The Metal Halides would be on there own ,again each one different.
Ive have seen only one light unit like this on line but it involved a processor,it was custom and cost was absorbent, but then the guy had 6years invested in a historically correct scale working model.

If i cant get them to flicker to on and warm up ,I settle for second best and just have a delayed on cycle spanning 20seconds ,with each set of lights affected in one way or the other.

https://api.viglink.com/api/click?f..., scale 1:50&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13311412192332

https://api.viglink.com/api/click?f..., scale 1:50&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13311412502213
 
Last edited:
I don't see a simple "old school" way of doing this with out a simple microprocessor.
A 'basic stamp' can do the job. It programming is pretty simple. I wish you were next door. I have a basic stamp I am not using.

This could be done with a EPROM memory and counter. The memory has 8 outputs that can be programmed with any sequence of on/off. The counter is counting about 4 times a second and at each count you are the opportunity to set any of the 8 outputs to on or off. There might be 128 steps. Programming the memory is about as complicated as programming the micro.
 
I have to agree,semiconductors only get a guy so far.
I looked at it time and time again ,unless I want to line up a pile of 555's the room all those circuits would take up would far out weigh the use of a microprocessor.
At some point space and weight to ballast the boat would be sacrificed,ending up with a ship that doesn't sit right on the water,and possibly sacrificing other aspects ,like smoke generator,thrusters and so forth..

Thanks for your input,
Ive been hesitant to get a Basic Stamp..but from what I have seen the language isn't all that different from pre-DOS programming..I had a Tandy 128k Color Computer III when I was a kid, The language for the Basic Stamp seems to run somewhat along those line's
 
Other Basic options would be a picaxe. Or, if developing more than a few projects, a PICkit 2 starter kit. Then, any number of Basic compilers would be available, including open source GCBasic. All the different light patterns could be handled with tables, timer interrupt, and 74hc595's.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top