I am designing a beerpong table, will be using some sort of 12v wall wart to power it.

The cups will be backed with neodymium magnets and below them will be a clear acrylic panel with reed switches + LED's underneath. I want the switch to somehow toggle between two different LED arrays under that particular cup. I also want to somehow fade in/out these LED arrays with capacitors but I have no idea how to figure out what caps I need + resistors.

There will be other components in the table including neon cold cathodes (case modders know what I'm talking about), LED chaser circuits, and a hairdryer fan. The rest of these components will be in parallel with the source.

In total there will be about 240 LED's (2 arrays of 5 LED's per cup, 20 cups), 8 12v neon cathodes, 2 fans.

My early schematic so far:

-Does everything look ok so far?

-What capacitors and wiring setup for those caps should I use? I've seen ones with a large capacitor wired in parallel with the LED and smaller ones in series. How do capacitors in these configurations change what resistors I need to use? I'd like to keep this bit relatively simple.

Thanks for the help

 

A wall wart will not give enough power.. each CCFL (if dual) will run about 1amp @ 12v.. so that's 8/4 amps depending if single or the stated dual. Old ATX PC PSUs make great cheap units for this kind of project. They will give you the amperage on the 12v line and give you 5v for any ICs you may want to power.

What's up with the hair dryer fan? What purpose will it serve?

When it comes to the neo mags I am assuming they will be glued to the under side of the cup so when a player removed the cup from the table it will trigger a lighting effect. So yeah, neos and reeds will be good there.

When it comes to chasers... there are prob dozens of premade chaser projects kits... most of them will be based on the 4017 CMOS logic IC and a 555 timer.

Thought: with the reed switches... you can add a score board!




Watch out for the bounce!

 

Hairdryer fans (if I can get the mechanics to work out) will serve as ball holders. They will float the balls in midair (great science project for kids by the way). Chaser kits (least the ones I found) all seem very overpriced...theyre all just made up of a 555 and 4017 arent they?

What kind of power supply do I need? How does a 200W supply sound?

Also, Where does 5v come out of computer power supplies? All the ones I've seen just have standard 12v molex.

 

Awesome trick with the hair dryer... you will want to mount in such a way where there is a S curve so if liquid enters the nozzle it will not reach the motor... think if loop you put in a fish tank's air hose or pump power cord to prevent water reaching the outlet.... a drip line.

You can proberly get a 4017 and a 555 from radio shack and get the rest of the componets to build a working prototype... at least a few years ago... read the data sheet first to make sure you will be able and aquire the parts you need. There are dozens of DIY pages floating around.

200watts sound fine... grab a 300w if possible just so it does not run hot and for the ability to expand.

The standerd, now nearly outdated, four contact molex connector seen to connect cdrom/harddrives have two ground (blk), one 12v (yellow), and one 5v, (red). The new SATA power connector has a orange which is 3.3v.

 

alright so atx power supply it is.

I'm a little confused with how I would work with capacitors though...I see the basic equations and the led fader circuits people have up, but those are generally with single LED's or a pair of glowing eyes and don't really say how they calculated the resistor and capacitor values.

How would I integrate a fader into my cup detection circuit? I imagine I have to reduce the LED arrays into a single big LED and work from there?

Any help or material I should look at to calculate what I want?

Thanks