I came here for electronics device but I see this thread has digressed to parental advice. Thanks for this but you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. I did not say I am giving this to a baby - there’s quite a big difference between a 3.5 year old toddler and a baby.
It’s quite bizarre to suggest I’m neglecting my son because I decided to make him something rather than buying him a toy. I assume your 90+ year old mother had all her toys sourced via modern manufacturing methods?
I think I have all the information I need now and thank the helpful responses however I think this thread has now run its course.

I wouldn't be so quick to become defensive over the suggestions made here. Safety is paramount to any engineer worth his salt and even more so when applied to children's toys. My brother in law was the type of guy to build stuff on a whim and let his kids get involved in his projects which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately he ignored safety provisions and left his kids unsupervised many times which made me uneasy to say the least. This is no reflection to you personally just something to think about because many of these folks have been in the industry for a long time and are aware of the not so apparent risks. I also think they are making these comments because it's clear you are still learning the basics of electronics which doesn't inspire confidence from a safety perspective. Good luck on your project.

 

I wouldn't be so quick to become defensive over the suggestions made here. Safety is paramount to any engineer worth his salt and even more so when applied to children's toys. My brother in law was the type of guy to build stuff on a whim and let his kids get involved in his projects which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately he ignored safety provisions and left his kids unsupervised many times which made me uneasy to say the least. This is no reflection to you personally just something to think about because many of these folks have been in the industry for a long time and are aware of the not so apparent risks. I also think they are making these comments because it's clear you are still learning the basics of electronics which doesn't inspire confidence from a safety perspective. Good luck on your project.

I really appreciate the suggestions regarding my project which have been made. I would have struggled to get this far had I not received any advice from this forum.

What I took issue with was the unfair assumption that I was planning on making this so I could then somehow neglect my child:
"I hope this is not built to keep your son occupied while you work - a sleeping baby makes the same sound as a choking baby - a real choke isn't a cough."
This is such a silly and unfair comment to make.

I would not question that poster's electrical expertise which is without question much greater than mine; when I said he didn't know what he was talking about I was referring to his suggestion that you can somehow keep a toddler occupied by just looking at them:
"Second, if you do plan on playing with this with the baby, then you'd be much better off playing with the baby and talking to him/her while they look at your face, look at your mouth forming words, your eyes and mouth making expressions."
Clearly this person does not have children or if I am to make my own unfair assumptions I would assume that he is of a generation where his wife did all of the childcare while he went out to work and therefore doesn't really know how to raise a child.

Anyway - back to topic. I realise that I have made quite a few mistakes with this project. The 9v battery was a poor choice, my LED resistors are too low hence the LEDs are blindingly bright and I've bought the wrong type of potentiomenter. I really don't fancy having to remove all the solder and add new components so I have decided to take the battery out and just shelf the project. I'll stick it safety up the loft and maybe one day in the future I'll tackle it again. Hopefully this will put everyone's mind at ease.....
At least I have learnt a bit about LEDs, resistors and diodes. I also turned my hand to soldering which is much harder than it looks.

Thanks again to everyone for all the helpful suggestions!

 

I really appreciate the suggestions regarding my project which have been made. I would have struggled to get this far had I not received any advice from this forum.

What I took issue with was the unfair assumption that I was planning on making this so I could then somehow neglect my child:
"I hope this is not built to keep your son occupied while you work - a sleeping baby makes the same sound as a choking baby - a real choke isn't a cough."
This is such a silly and unfair comment to make.

I would not question that poster's electrical expertise which is without question much greater than mine; when I said he didn't know what he was talking about I was referring to his suggestion that you can somehow keep a toddler occupied by just looking at them:
"Second, if you do plan on playing with this with the baby, then you'd be much better off playing with the baby and talking to him/her while they look at your face, look at your mouth forming words, your eyes and mouth making expressions."
Clearly this person does not have children or if I am to make my own unfair assumptions I would assume that he is of a generation where his wife did all of the childcare while he went out to work and therefore doesn't really know how to raise a child.

Anyway - back to topic. I realise that I have made quite a few mistakes with this project. The 9v battery was a poor choice, my LED resistors are too low hence the LEDs are blindingly bright and I've bought the wrong type of potentiomenter. I really don't fancy having to remove all the solder and add new components so I have decided to take the battery out and just shelf the project. I'll stick it safety up the loft and maybe one day in the future I'll tackle it again. Hopefully this will put everyone's mind at ease.....
At least I have learnt a bit about LEDs, resistors and diodes. I also turned my hand to soldering which is much harder than it looks.

Thanks again to everyone for all the helpful suggestions!

Personally I think it's a good idea to shelf your prototype primarily because it's your first attempt. Since your son is still quite young, you have plenty of time to think of new ideas and work them out beforehand. Also, I think it's great you want to build and share something scientific with your kids.. I certainly did not get that from my parents. Why not make version #2?. Alternatively, there are many breadboard kits for kids that you can buy. Most of them are fairly advanced so it can be an ongoing thing if he likes it.

 

Anyway - back to topic. I realise that I have made quite a few mistakes with this project. The 9v battery was a poor choice, my LED resistors are too low hence the LEDs are blindingly bright and I've bought the wrong type of potentiomenter. I really don't fancy having to remove all the solder and add new components so I have decided to take the battery out and just shelf the project. I'll stick it safety up the loft and maybe one day in the future I'll tackle it again. Hopefully this will put everyone's mind at ease.....
At least I have learnt a bit about LEDs, resistors and diodes. I also turned my hand to soldering which is much harder than it looks.

Thanks again to everyone for all the helpful suggestions!

I appreciate all the hard work you put into this. It is frustrating when a project doesn't end up where we'd imagine it would go. But I am gong to make a digest that might, at first, seem odd. I agree that the impracticality of what you've made makes it unsuited to give to him. But you wanted to make something with your own mind and hands for your son, and that's a really great thing that will mean a lot to him in the future when he understands it.

I have five sons, all adults now, and I know that the memories of me they talk about most are when I did something that was when I did something they can see, in retrospect, was from my own effort for them personally; and when I taught them something which this will, eventually, become as you explain how it works to him as he gets old enough to understand and work on it with you.

So, instead of putting it away and giving up, put it away and do it right. I am going to suggest, and I am sure there will be some here that say it is unnecessary or "the wrong way", that you redesign the box but this time use an Arduino microcontroller as the central part. This may seem daunting but bear with me.

The Arduino is designed to be accessible. It offers a lot to learning material and documentation. If you build using it—or a compatible microcontroller—the sort of revisions you are dreading in this case can be fixed in software! And, the box becomes a platform that you can use to give many "new" toys because you can use it as palette for new programs that change what it does. You can add different kinds of interactively a piece at a time.

Yes, there is a learning curve, but it is no harder that what you've already done and for the same effort will open a broad horizon of possibilities that is otherwise inaccessible. For example, you can add MP3 playback with a simple, cheap module. You can include a display for text and images, you could add accelerometers that would interact with the movement of the box, and you could even make it possible to send new software to the box OTA (Over The Air) via WiFi so it could be updated whenever you want.

Yes, all of the advanced options will take starting out much more modestly. But if you built the box, with LEDs (maybe even some programmable RGB ones), switches, knobs, and buttons to start, and had those things connected to an Arduino, you could make them do many things that you could never do with the hardwired design and the toy can be interesting for a very long time.

I strongly encourage you to get an Arduino starter kit with the sensors and learning materials and see what it is about. I promise you that even if it seems daunting it is no harder than what you've already done. I always recommend that if you can afford it, buy an official Arduino starter kit. Arduino are the folks who invented the platform and whose work is copied to make the cheap clones. and who develop the software environment that makes all of this possible. But, if you can't afford it, it's OK to buy a clone (I bought these one for one of my sons, mostly because of the large selection of sensors). They are not counterfeits because the Arduino hardware and software is open source and free for them to copy.

Either way, please look into it. You will get plenty of help here but the amount of material and help for Arduinos is amazing. So many learning sites, including Arduino's own and so many different ways of explaining it that at least one is sure to suit you.

I hope you consider this idea. What you wanted to do is still very much worthwhile doing, please don't give up on it. It would be a great thing for your son, and I believe a legacy that, long after the box itself might have been lost to time, the memories he will have of you making it, and hopefully of the two of you improving it together as he is old enough, will be priceless to him.

Whatever you do, that impulse to make things with your own hands for your children is one you should always foster, it's a great gift to them.

[EDIT: typo correction without content change]

 

I appreciate all the hard work you put into this. It is frustrating when a project doesn't end up where we'd imagine it would go. But I am gong to make a digest that might, at first, seem odd. I agree that the impracticality of what you've made makes it unsuited to give to him. But you wanted to make something with your own mind and hands for your son, and that's a really great thing that will mean a lot to him in the future when he understands it.

I have five sons, all adults now, and I know that the memories of me they talk about most are when I did something that was when I did something they can see, in retrospect, was from my own effort for them personally; and when I taught them something which this will, eventually, become as you explain how it works to him as he gets old enough to understand and work on it with you.

So, instead of putting it away and giving up, put it away and do it right. I am going to suggest, and I am sure there will be some here that say it is unnecessary or "the wrong way", that you redesign the box but this time use an Arduino microcontroller as the central part. This may seem daunting but bear with me.

The Arduino is designed to be accessible. It offers a lot to learning material and documentation. If you build using it—or a compatible microcontroller—the sort of revisions you are dreading in this case can be fixed in software! And, the box becomes a platform that you can use to give many "new" toys because you can use it as palette for new programs that change what it does. You can add different kinds of interactively a piece at a time.

Yes, there is a learning curve, but it is no harder that what you've already done and for the same effort will open a broad horizon of possibilities that is otherwise inaccessible. For example, you can add MP3 playback with a simple, cheap module. You can include a display for text and images, you could add accelerometers that would interact with the movement of the box, and you could even make it possible to send new software to the box OTA (Over The Air) via WiFi so it could be updated whenever you want.

Yes, all of the advanced options will take starting out much more modestly. But if you built the box, with LEDs (maybe even some programmable RGB ones), switches, knobs, and buttons to start, and had those things connected to an Arduino, you could make them do many things that you could never do with the hardwired design and the toy can be interesting for a very long time.

I strongly encourage you to get an Arduino starter kit with the sensors and learning materials and see what it is about. I promise you that even if it seems daunting it is no harder than what you've already done. I always recommend that if you can afford it, buy an official Arduino starter kit. Arduino are the folks who invented the platform and whose work is copied to make the cheap clones. and who develop the software environment that makes all of this possible. But, if you can't afford it, it's OK to buy a clone (I bought these one for one of my sons, mostly because of the large selection of sensors). They are not counterfeits because the Arduino hardware and software is open source and free for them to copy.

Either way, please look into it. You will get plenty of help here but the amount of material and help for Arduinos is amazing. So many learning sites, including Arduino's own and so many different ways of explaining it that at least one is sure to suit you.

I hope you consider this idea. What you wanted to do is still very much worthwhile doing, please don't give up on it. It would be a great thing for your son, and I believe a legacy that, long after the box itself might have been lost to time, the memories he will have of you making it, and hopefully of the two of you improving it together as he is old enough, will be priceless to him.

Whatever you do, that impulse to make things with your own hands for your children is one you should always foster, it's a great gift to them.

[EDIT: typo correction without content change]

Many thanks for these kind words and suggestions.
That is a great idea! I had not heard of the Ardunio but they look like great bits of kit. Seem to be similar to the Raspberry Pi concept but rather than being a micro computer they are a circuit board controller - very interesting! I will definitely look into this some more!

 

Many thanks for these kind words and suggestions.
That is a great idea! I had not heard of the Ardunio but they look like great bits of kit. Seem to be similar to the Raspberry Pi concept but rather than being a micro computer they are a circuit board controller - very interesting! I will definitely look into this some more!

Yes, they are microcontrollers focusing on hardware interfacing. It's a whole world of possibility. I am glad you are interested.

 

I came here for electronics device but I see this thread has digressed to parental advice.

Ignore them. They are jealous.

I see a solderless breadboard that will disconnect many parts and possibly cause the battery to make a fire

For this thread, ignoring him is as safe as your circuit / construction / tiny little battery - very.

ak

 

I see

No, you don't.

ak

 

there’s quite a big difference between a 3.5 year old toddler and a baby.

Yes, there is. My five year old nearly choked to death when he got a hold of his sisters keys to her diary. The strangest circumstances can and will arise. Hence, our need to caution you comes from a place of caring and concern.

It’s quite bizarre to suggest I’m neglecting my son

Nobody is suggesting that. However, sometimes people say things the wrong way, or even we hear them the wrong way. That's why people here advise caution. And when you take an adversarial role we only become more concerned for what appears to be a lack of concern for safety. Like I said, things can change in less than a second. My daughter nearly drowned because I looked away for 10 seconds. Fortunately her brother was right there to pull her up. And she was supposed to stay in the shallow end where she could stand up. She snook down the side of the pool then lost her grip and went under.

We know you care about your child(ren). We're just concerned that you might be missing some hazards that you'd think could never become the case. Yet they can. I recall the first caution I gave you was to make sure the lights are not too bright. Had no one said that you might have decided on your own to turn down the intensity. But then again you might have decided it's not that dangerous and overlooked it. We don't know what level of intelligence you possess. But us parents here have been through far more than you have. If you had our level of experience you'd likely be agreeing with us.

Nobody here doubts your love for your child. The desire to build something for them is powerful. I have a toy I've built for my grand children. Yet I have withheld it from them because the new children are most likely to find a way to get a marble out of it and either swallow it or choke on it. None of us want to give you advice that ends up harming someone. Either a shock hazard or a choking hazard - we take great caution to NOT give bad advice. But it's on you to decide what to do with that advice. In the end you are the one who is solely responsible for your child's welfare. When I was a young boy, age 14 I built a mini-bike. No, didn't build the frame, I just put a motor on a frame along with the chain. The motor I used did not have a fan shroud. But I knew I would be safe and not stick my leg into the spinning fan. Moments later my pants were ruined and I was bleeding profusely. And that one took less than a tenth of a second. After that I went and found a fan shroud for that motor and put it on. Lesson learned. The HARD way. Yet I survived. My dad had a block of lead and I used to play with it. Then have dinner with dirty hands. You think I didn't get lead poisoning? I'm sure I did. And lead paint was everywhere in the house I grew up in. I played with 120VAC. Got shocked dozens of times. I played with transformers - high voltage transformers. Got shocked from hand to hand. Am I lucky to be able to give you advice? Absolutely. There are hundreds of reasons why I shouldn't be here. Yet, like your 90+ year old grandmother, we faced our dangers. Many of us survived. Some didn't. And they never got to be grand parents. I had a brother die at the age of 18. He never had a chance to live. He can't tell you his story, it ended too soon. Those of us here have survived in what can be described as our own hubris. Our own beliefs that we were invincible.

Please consider the advice you're getting here. Be 100% sure you're not going to harm your child by overlooking the simplest thing like a screw that can come loose and then be swallowed. Even 3 1/2 year old's put stuff in their mouths.

 

Yes, there is. My five year old nearly choked to death when he got a hold of his sisters keys to her diary. The strangest circumstances can and will arise. Hence, our need to caution you comes from a place of caring and concern.
Nobody is suggesting that. However, sometimes people say things the wrong way, or even we hear them the wrong way. That's why people here advise caution. And when you take an adversarial role we only become more concerned for what appears to be a lack of concern for safety. Like I said, things can change in less than a second. My daughter nearly drowned because I looked away for 10 seconds. Fortunately her brother was right there to pull her up. And she was supposed to stay in the shallow end where she could stand up. She snook down the side of the pool then lost her grip and went under.

We know you care about your child(ren). We're just concerned that you might be missing some hazards that you'd think could never become the case. Yet they can. I recall the first caution I gave you was to make sure the lights are not too bright. Had no one said that you might have decided on your own to turn down the intensity. But then again you might have decided it's not that dangerous and overlooked it. We don't know what level of intelligence you possess. But us parents here have been through far more than you have. If you had our level of experience you'd likely be agreeing with us.

Nobody here doubts your love for your child. The desire to build something for them is powerful. I have a toy I've built for my grand children. Yet I have withheld it from them because the new children are most likely to find a way to get a marble out of it and either swallow it or choke on it. None of us want to give you advice that ends up harming someone. Either a shock hazard or a choking hazard - we take great caution to NOT give bad advice. But it's on you to decide what to do with that advice. In the end you are the one who is solely responsible for your child's welfare. When I was a young boy, age 14 I built a mini-bike. No, didn't build the frame, I just put a motor on a frame along with the chain. The motor I used did not have a fan shroud. But I knew I would be safe and not stick my leg into the spinning fan. Moments later my pants were ruined and I was bleeding profusely. And that one took less than a tenth of a second. After that I went and found a fan shroud for that motor and put it on. Lesson learned. The HARD way. Yet I survived. My dad had a block of lead and I used to play with it. Then have dinner with dirty hands. You think I didn't get lead poisoning? I'm sure I did. And lead paint was everywhere in the house I grew up in. I played with 120VAC. Got shocked dozens of times. I played with transformers - high voltage transformers. Got shocked from hand to hand. Am I lucky to be able to give you advice? Absolutely. There are hundreds of reasons why I shouldn't be here. Yet, like your 90+ year old grandmother, we faced our dangers. Many of us survived. Some didn't. And they never got to be grand parents. I had a brother die at the age of 18. He never had a chance to live. He can't tell you his story, it ended too soon. Those of us here have survived in what can be described as our own hubris. Our own beliefs that we were invincible.

Please consider the advice you're getting here. Be 100% sure you're not going to harm your child by overlooking the simplest thing like a screw that can come loose and then be swallowed. Even 3 1/2 year old's put stuff in their mouths.

Thanks for this interesting and personal post.

I recall the first caution I gave you was to make sure the lights are not too bright.

Yes I am genuinely surprised at how bright LEDs are. I really had no idea they were so powerful.

 

Anyway...you might be able to save your project by placing some sort of power control between the battery and the rest of the circuit, or just reducing the battery voltage to begin with.

I'm sorry if these suggestions were offered before, I admit to skimming some of the posts, because of the noise.

The problem with reducing the power after the battery is that the green and blue LEDs will probably dim before the others and I'm not sure all of your components will work on reduced voltage, of it that would be acceptable.

Power control can be as simple as a bjt in common collector mode, or perhaps some PWM might work.

 

Another thought was if you can remove the lens from those LEDs some white paint on the inside will help.

 

I am new to this form and new to electronics in general.

Based on that first line from your first post, I correctly concluded that you haven't had the chance to learn from other people's mistakes. Building children's toys is not the right hobby to learn from your own mistakes.

Finally, thanks for putting your project away for now.

 

I AM NOT OFFERING FEAR-LADEN PARENTAL ADVICE.
I do offer a comment about the circuit, which is that the lines tagged "2X big on/off" appears to be a direct short circuit across the supply. I suggest changing that portion.

Also, in the area of the toggle switch the circuit is a bit unclear. I don't see a problem, but the arrangement is rather complex.

I do suggest that you avoid using a experimentr breadboard for the final version because they are subject to disconnections with handling, far more likely a failure to illuminate than any other problem.

As for the RGB LEDs and the potentiometers, (variable resistors), I suggest 500 ohm pots and an additional series resistor of either 180 ohms or 220 ohms.

And, regarding the fear-mongering efforts, keep in mind that all businesses need to be guarding against both unbelievabkly stupid customers and also horribly nasty lawyers, or whatever they are called in the UK. Some folks, having been attacked by such, are fearful there after. Unlike a growling dog, though, they can be safely ignored.

And rather than table the project, consider that a box with swtches and knobs can be just as interesting and offers the real benefit of never hhvingthe battery run down. I built one of those for my son many years ago and it controlled a number of imaginary creations over the years. Eventually it was passed on to a grandson, who may have finally worn it out.

 

And rather than table the project, consider that a box with swtches and knobs can be just as interesting and offers the real benefit of never hhvingthe battery run down. I built one of those for my son many years ago

Did he die?

 

consider that a box with switches and knobs can be just as interesting...

The boxes that those switches and knobs came in may prove to be the most interesting toys.

 

Did he die?

He mentioned grandson so, if he did die, it was many years later (and cruel to bring up here). Keep up.

 

The boxes that those switches and knobs came in may prove to be the most interesting toys.

Boy how I have to agree with that. Can't recall how many times my kids chose to play with the boxes the toys came in as opposed to playing with the toys that came in those boxes. Always joked about making a toy for the marketplace - "Toy Garbage". Seems you would have made a mint with my kids anyway.

 

Yes I am genuinely surprised at how bright LEDs are. I really had no idea they were so powerful.

The only way you are going to get the various mis-matched LEDs to match (approximately) in brightness, and a brightness that is pleasing and won't alert the photon police, is to tune them.

I don't know what kind of access you have to electronic components, but I would start with a full-sized pot (as opposed to a small trimpot) of 5K or 10K, and a fixed resistor of 470 to 1 K ohms. You already have the LEDs mounted, which is good because you will be evaluating them with the real background. Connect to one LED, adjust for the maximum (non-death) brightness you want, disconnect, measure the pot, write down the total resistance, move on to the next one. You will end up with a table of resistor values.

With that list and a table of standard 5% resistor values, you should be able to adjust the desired values up or down a little to reduce the number of different resistor values. With those values, you've set the max brightness for all LEDs. If some of the LEDs are to be adjustable, a pot goes in series with the resistance you've determined. A pot value of 5x to 10x the fixed value should work, but this part is very-variable; I don't think matching the minimum brightness is as important as matching the max's.

ak

 

I AM NOT OFFERING FEAR-LADEN PARENTAL ADVICE.
I do offer a comment about the circuit, which is that the lines tagged "2X big on/off" appears to be a direct short circuit across the supply. I suggest changing that portion.

Also, in the area of the toggle switch the circuit is a bit unclear. I don't see a problem, but the arrangement is rather complex.

I do suggest that you avoid using a experimentr breadboard for the final version because they are subject to disconnections with handling, far more likely a failure to illuminate than any other problem.

As for the RGB LEDs and the potentiometers, (variable resistors), I suggest 500 ohm pots and an additional series resistor of either 180 ohms or 220 ohms.

And, regarding the fear-mongering efforts, keep in mind that all businesses need to be guarding against both unbelievabkly stupid customers and also horribly nasty lawyers, or whatever they are called in the UK. Some folks, having been attacked by such, are fearful there after. Unlike a growling dog, though, they can be safely ignored.

And rather than table the project, consider that a box with swtches and knobs can be just as interesting and offers the real benefit of never hhvingthe battery run down. I built one of those for my son many years ago and it controlled a number of imaginary creations over the years. Eventually it was passed on to a grandson, who may have finally worn it out.

Yes I did a few updates to the circuit sketch after initially posting.
The idea is that you turn a key switch (he loves keys) which connects the battery to an on/on toggle and to a red flashing led. This indicates it’s “ready”. Then when you move the position of the on/on toggle the red led goes off and the green led goes on and also the “live” line of the strip board gets power. All of the switches will then have power and will turn on their respective leds when closed.
I also put in an extra “live” line on the strip board which connects directly to the leds (bypasses the individual switches) so that when a big on/off toggle is closed everything lights up at the same time (and blinds anyone nearby ). To stop everything lighting up when an individual switch is closed I put diodes between the switches and that live line. Hope that all makes sense. Anyway even though I’m not giving it to my son for reasons previously discussed I was quite pleased that it all woks. And yes I used solder and strip boards rather than a bread board for the final build.