I took this pic in Jan 2009, and put it in my watsonseblog at about the same time. It’s just two astable multivibrators suspended in a wire frame for support. Since then I’ve replaced some of the LEDs with more modern high brightness green LEDs.
2012-05-16 Big Cheap Toroids
I found some large toroids (about 2 to 2.5 inch and about $2 something apiece) at BG Micro, so I ordered forty some dollars worth. They must be heavy, ‘cuz the UPS charges were nearly half the price of the order! I’m gonna wind some heavy duty Joule Thiefs or something like that. Maybe make
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2012-05-04 11 LED Lights From An Inverter!
Holy Smokes! Peanutbutter291’s experiment (Youtube vid) has gone to extremes! There must be way over a hundred dollars in the 11 LED lights, not to mention the socket to outlet adapters, power strip and 3-way taps, which must add up to another $40 to $50. I was at the Big Box store this evening and
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2012-05-01 Light Sensor Circuit
I watched this video on Youtube called Light Sensor Making Steps. He shows a schematic at the beginning. The problem is that when the light is bright, the CdS “LDR ” photocell’s resistance can go well below 1000 ohms, and then the photocell is passing as much or more current as the LED is using.
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2012-04-30 Stepper Motor Drives LED – Clock?
I’ve taken apart many disk drives, CD drives and floppy drives. The magnets are awesome! Another fun part is the motor. In the case of floppies and CDs, the head stepper motor is small, relatively powerful for its size, and can be used as a generator to drive a red LED connected directly to it
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2012-04-29 Ring Oscillator Teleport Transponder
I’ve built and blogged a ring oscillator that works good for making LEDs look like marching lights on a marquee. I think I could get 9 LEDs, the circuit and a 9V battery into an Altoids tin, and it would look cool. I’d have to paint over the ‘Curiously..’ whatever on the outside, though. The
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2012-04-25 Solar Cell As A LED
Quantsuff sent me a link to this article about researchers who found a new or different way to increase the efficiency of a solar cell – make it more like a LED. I relate this experience to demonstrate that there are technologies out there that are waiting to make a major change in how the
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2012-04-20 Davro’s Diode Oscillator
I received a Google Alert and watched Jonny Davro’s Diode Oscillator running from a AA cell and putting out light when connected to, among other coils, a Slinky spring. I thought that I should have a go at this odd circuit. I assembled it as he showed in the schematic. I used the same BC560C
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