kg19+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kurt A. Geisel) (12/11/89)
Am I the only one who is dissatisfied with these cheap "Midget Lights" which have taken over Christmas in the past few years? Doesn't anyone remember the big classics? This brings me to two questions which may or may not have anything to do with this newsgroup. 1. My parents still have their giant blinking Christmas tree lights which are probably a couple of decades old. You know the kind- they are almost as big as "outdoor lights", but they are translucent (not frosted) in various colors and they all blink independently, probably by means of a bimetal bar in each one (it takes several minutes to warm up before they blink and they all start independently.) The problem is that they are burning out one by one each Christmas and despite desperate searching, we can't find where they are being made anymore anywhere. Has anyone seen these at all? 2. Has anyone experimented with custom or computer controlled light strings? How would you go about independently controlling lights on a string without having a monster thick cable? - Kurt Kurt Geisel SNAIL : Carnegie Mellon University 65 Lambeth Dr. ARPA : kg19+@andrew.cmu.edu Pittsburgh, PA 15241 UUCP : uunet!nfsun!kgeisel "I will not be pushed, filed, indexed, stamped, BIX : kgeisel briefed, debriefed, or numbered!" - The Prisoner
hbg6@citek.UUCP (John Schuch) (12/12/89)
I built up a little chase light controller from salvaged parts last year and it worked fairly well. It's simply an oscillator, a binary counter, a BCD to decimal decoder, and four solid state relays. The relays are the only expensive parts and they could probably be replaced with a cheaper alternative. By changing the wiring of the relays, various chase effects can be generated. This year, it's driving four strings of lights attached to a nine foot star on my roof. There is a specialized light controller chip which drives relays for a lot of different effects but I decided it was overkill given the cost and complexity of the circuit. ( but then I'm driving single strings of lights with 20 amp relays, if that's not overkill, what is? :-)) More info if you want it. JS
ce1zzes@prism.gatech.EDU (Eric Sheppard) (12/12/89)
In article <kZUeZXK00WB5434JQm@andrew.cmu.edu>, kg19+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kurt A. Geisel) writes: > > 2. Has anyone experimented with custom or computer controlled > light strings? How would you go about independently controlling > lights on a string without having a monster thick cable? I modified the design of a circuit that appeared in Modern Electronics last year. The magazine's design used diodes to program a matrix of five strings of lights, and counters stepped through nine programs of flashing displays. I thought it would make a terrific Christmas gift, but the suggested cost of > $100 was unacceptable. I redesigned the circuit to give either five or seven channels (strings) of lights, and up to 16 programs, all stored in an EPROM. The end result was spectacular; total cost is probably around $35. What do you think? Eric, tinkerer-at-large -- Eric Sheppard Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!ce1zzes ARPA: ce1zzes@prism.gatech.edu
billk@hpsad.HP.COM (Bill Katz) (12/15/89)
You want to talk about overkill in blinking lights... I have an
8749 that runs 16 different patterns on a string of 16 LEDs. The catch is
you do have to run a wire to each one. But that wasn't good enough.
The mark 2 light blinker is a 68000 that can do 60 or 70 different
effects on a 16 by 64 array of LEDs. I use this as part of a halloween
costume. Of course with only 1024 solid state relays it would be possible
to run an array of Christmas bulbs.
______________________________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________________________ifarqhar@mqccsunc.mqcc.mq.OZ (Ian Farquhar) (12/18/89)
In article <1840021@hpsad.HP.COM> billk@hpsad.HP.COM (Bill Katz) writes: > > You want to talk about overkill in blinking lights... I have an >8749 that runs 16 different patterns on a string of 16 LEDs. The catch is >you do have to run a wire to each one. But that wasn't good enough. > The mark 2 light blinker is a 68000 that can do 60 or 70 different >effects on a 16 by 64 array of LEDs. I use this as part of a halloween >costume. Of course with only 1024 solid state relays it would be possible >to run an array of Christmas bulbs. > This is the best example of engineering overkill that I have yet heard of! A 68000 to flash a few lights (running UNIX, maybe? :-) I hope you are joking. Oh, well... I remember that when I was involved in an astronomy project to design a wall chart, we used these clever little leds that had (I think) a 3909 chip in them. (The 3909 is a LED Flasher chip, quite clever). We discovered that by varying the voltage, we could quite accurately vary the flash rate at the start, though manufacturing differences got them out of sync after a couple of minutes. A christmas tree made out of these would be very easy: a 5V supply (if my memory serves me correctly) running along some thin green figure 8. The other really nice thing is that these LED's drew such a small current, that a short would not be a fire hazard! Of course, you would not get the nice effects, but then it wouldn't have a MIP behind it either! D
billk@hpsad.HP.COM (Bill Katz) (12/19/89)
>ifarqhar@mqccsunc.mq.oz (Ian Farquhar) writes: > >In article <1840021@hpsad.HP.COM> billk@hpsad.HP.COM (Bill Katz) writes: >> >> You want to talk about overkill in blinking lights... I have an >>8749 that runs 16 different patterns on a string of 16 LEDs. The catch is >>you do have to run a wire to each one. But that wasn't good enough. >> The mark 2 light blinker is a 68000 that can do 60 or 70 different >>effects on a 16 by 64 array of LEDs. I use this as part of a halloween >>costume. Of course with only 1024 solid state relays it would be possible >>to run an array of Christmas bulbs. >> >This is the best example of engineering overkill that I have yet heard >of! A 68000 to flash a few lights (running UNIX, maybe? :-) I hope you >are joking. > >Oh, well... > >Of course, you would not get the nice effects, but then it wouldn't have >a MIP behind it either! > But what great effects! I have chase lights in all different directions, text that can scroll everywhich way, random blinking... Heck, I even have subliminal messages built in. Now if only I could find a stadium that needed a fancy scoreboard :-) But, seriously it was more to teach me embedded programming and design of 68k based hardware (we use 68k's in most of the equipment we build here at work, so the parts are cheap, and we have emulators, compilers, and all the goodies one needs for these things). It was a fun project, despite being relatively useless. ______________________________________________________________________________ _ /| -ACK! Bill (the) Katz Internet: billk@hpsad.hp.com \'o.O' -PFHHHT! Hewlett-Packard UUCP: hplabs!hpsad!billk =(___)= -COUGH! Signal Analysis Div. Phone: (707) 794-2300 U -ACK! 1212 Valley House Dr. Fax: (707) 794-4452 Rohnert Park, CA 95428 ______________________________________________________________________________