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Sunrise Simulator

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scuba_rob

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Hi Guys,

I am considering building/designing a device that will gradually bring a table light to maximum power over a period of 20 mins. (perhaps an advanced model could have options for 15 and 30mins) The idea is that it can be used as an alarm clock. I know that there are commercial solutions but they are expensive and I would rather use my own bedside lamp than the designs they have for pure aesthetics.

I have an electronics background but have forgotten most of it.
But I would imagine that it would require the following:

1.alarm clock circuitry to power on
2.some sort of timer chip (perhaps a 555) to send a timed pulse
3. an ADC to receive the pulse and step up the voltage a notch

What do you think is it a viable project or should I just bite the bullet and buy the commercial option.

Cheers,

Rob
 
How big of a bullet do you have to bite? It doesnt seem that bad to do.
And you have free tech support on this message board. :D

First off, what kind of lamp are you looking to control? power requirements ect.
 
Thanks for the encouragement and offer of support !

the lamp I would like to power is my bed side table lamp.

the lamp runs straight from the mains 240V (UK) and currently has a 40W candle bayonet bulb.

I am envisaging plugging the lamp(just thought might be better to run two of the above lamps on either side of the bed !) into the device and the device into the mains.

Cheers,

Rob
 
search the net for lamp dimmer circuits, I bet you will find some. If you can find one that will let you adjust the brightness with an analog voltage, then you could use a large capacitor with large series resistor across a 5v supply, and then wire the capacitor to the input. then as the capacitor charges the lamp would get brighter. the duration could be set by changing resistor values with a switch, or even using a potentiometer.
 
You may want to check out www.vellemanusa.com, they have listed in their 2004 catalogue a multifunctional dimmer #k8028 that appears to be able to due exactly what you want.
 
loks like velleman k8028 the slow on/off dimmer might do the trick. I just need to work out if the delay time setting is the time of 0 - 100 % brightness or the delay before the dimmer is triggered.

Thanks,

Rob
 
The Velleman K8029 looks to be perfect, the helpdesk guys in Belgium responded very quickly to let me know that the dimmer can be set to go from 0% to 100% for any time up to two hrs !!

I have also discovered that I will need kit K8006 which is the main control board for the lighting system.

It refers to a 24VAC 300mA source that you step down from mains voltage using a transformer.

Searhing for an appropriate transformer on www.cpc.co.uk has provided slightly difficult has they seem to grade them differently.

Would a 24V 1.5VA be right ?

Here is the link to the product (additional tech info is available on the catalogue page link)

**broken link removed**

If it is I will place my order. I also need to work out how to add the timer so it starts at the right time.

Thanks Rob
 
No the 24V at 1.5VA is not correct. VA is Volts times amps. In this case 24V times 300Ma= 24 x 0.3 or 7.2VA. But any transformer that has a 24 volt secondary at greater then 300Ma should work.

I went to the website you located a transformer on and found 3 possible ones. They were part numbers TF00755, this has two windings each is 10VA so you would only have to you one secondary. The TF00300 has a 120V primary the TF00302 has a 230V primary.

I am not sure what your mains voltage is, but what you want is a transfromer that steps your main voltage down to 24V at or greater than 0.3 amps.
 
Hi all

I'm also interested in making a sunrise / dawn simulator and in a search of the forums found this topic. It seems to fit my purposes perfectly so I thought I would hijack it. :D

I think I need more light than a couple of 40W bulbs though my initial idea of using a 500W security light is probably over the top. I've also considered using, perhaps, 5 bulbs and turning them on full one after the other (with a suitable delay) but I suspect this isn't going to give me the effect I want. Am I just being pessimistic or am I right in thinking it isn't that easy?

For the time I was planning on just taking what I need from a purchased alarm clock, a search on the few electronics suppliers I've used previously turned up nothing very suitable.

Neither of the two UK suppliers of the velleman kits seem to have the multifunctional dimmer in their catalogue so I'll have to contact them and see if they can get it as a special order.

I'll try and return with progress reports. :)
 
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