lighthouse in a bottle model.

Thread Starter

torpedochief

Joined Mar 30, 2008
128
SOS Help!! I have the parts in but I have a no go on the circuit. I etched one board. I do Photo Etched model parts so it is easier for me than bread boarding and the fact that I do not understand how to do bread boarding. I need to learn that skill. I bought two but could not figure it out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Believe it or not CBS News is doing a segment on my lighthouses soon, I need to get one up and running.

Thanks for all your help so far. Never would have made it this far without your help.
 

Bernard

Joined Aug 7, 2008
5,784
I just finished my light house, looks great according to my lady friend. Am looking for a way to post a video.
Light ramps up for 4 sec, flashes, ramps down for 4 sec. pauses for 5 sec. & repeats.
Here is the schematic for the light, day-night & battery management are on seperate card & schematic
 

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cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
SOS Help!! I have the parts in but I have a no go on the circuit. I etched one board. I do Photo Etched model parts so it is easier for me than bread boarding and the fact that I do not understand how to do bread boarding. I need to learn that skill. I bought two but could not figure it out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Believe it or not CBS News is doing a segment on my lighthouses soon, I need to get one up and running.

Thanks for all your help so far. Never would have made it this far without your help.
Which circuit in particular are you trying to build?
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
The second one. What watts should the 470 and the 33k Resistor be? The 555 gets very hot.

Thanks again or the help
1/4 watt standard for all resistors should work just fine... in fact, the resistors consuming the most power are R2 and R4, which are feeding the LEDs, and they're only dissipating less than 30mW each
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
As for the 555, I don't know why it gets very hot... can you hold your finger on it without feeling pain? I've seen 555s that get quite hot and are still ok...
According to the simulation, the 555 is dissipating less than 34mW average.
 

Thread Starter

torpedochief

Joined Mar 30, 2008
128
Shipmates, I am buildind working lighthouses in a bottle. They are selling great however I want to kick it up a notch. Lighthouses flash a varios rates and colors. Example: Ten Pound Island Light flashes red 3 seconds on and three seconds off. Boston light flashes white every 10 seconds. I need a circuit 3 vilts and ultra small that I can adjust the flash rate. Is this doable? I can etch my own boards. Any help would be appreciated.
 

TheButtonThief

Joined Feb 26, 2011
237
Smashing stuff. I love it when a forum comes together on a project.

Personally, I'd have used a uC like an ATtiny85, it the same 8 pin case as the 555 bot none of those external components would be needed (except for maybe a resistor for the LED) and it would work directly off 3V (so maybe no resistor needed). The main advantage would be that the same board could be used in every product variation, just a different program loaded to the chip. The Attiny85 also comes in a SMD package so your board with it's LED would be compact enough to fit in the lighthouse.

Still, loving this thread. Cool little lifestyle business you have =)
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
It works!!!!! I finally found the parts and it works. Now my lighthouses are unique. This is really a dream come true! Can't
:)
Man, it feels real good to learn when your 2 cents have actually made a difference.
Kudos for completing your project and seeing it through. And a sincere thank you for coming back to this thread and letting us know the good news.
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
Smashing stuff. I love it when a forum comes together on a project.

Personally, I'd have used a uC like an ATtiny85, it the same 8 pin case as the 555 bot none of those external components would be needed (except for maybe a resistor for the LED) and it would work directly off 3V (so maybe no resistor needed). The main advantage would be that the same board could be used in every product variation, just a different program loaded to the chip. The Attiny85 also comes in a SMD package so your board with it's LED would be compact enough to fit in the lighthouse.

Still, loving this thread. Cool little lifestyle business you have =)
You're right. But you have to consider the OP's skills. Programming an MCU, however simple it may be, could be much harder to implement than an ordinary 555 circuit
 

TheButtonThief

Joined Feb 26, 2011
237
You're right. But you have to consider the OP's skills. Programming an MCU, however simple it may be, could be much harder to implement than an ordinary 555 circuit
Ahh shoot, I'd write up the programs for him, just like you designed the board for him. It's only a few lines of code and since he can make PCB's, I'd even have sent him the PCB layout/parts list to make himself one of my ATtiny teach pendants. All he'd have to do is buy the tiny85's, mount one on the pendant, plug the pendant into a USB port and use the Arduino IDE to load the correct program. Or, write just one program and then design the board with solder pads/ jumpers to short in order to run particular flash sequences.

Mr. SgtWookie came up with a good point in that the way a lighthouse appears to flash isn't linear or "digital". A uC could ramp up and ramp down the LED with a curve and I've already written a program to do something similar with a set of CCFL's. It would make the little lighthouse look rather realistic =)
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
Ahh shoot, I'd write up the programs for him, just like you designed the board for him. It's only a few lines of code and since he can make PCB's, I'd even have sent him the PCB layout/parts list to make himself one of my ATtiny teach pendants. All he'd have to do is buy the tiny85's, mount one on the pendant, plug the pendant into a USB port and use the Arduino IDE to load the correct program. Or, write just one program and then design the board with solder pads/ jumpers to short in order to run particular flash sequences.

Mr. SgtWookie came up with a good point in that the way a lighthouse appears to flash isn't linear or "digital". A uC could ramp up and ramp down the LED with a curve and I've already written a program to do something similar with a set of CCFL's. It would make the little lighthouse look rather realistic =)
That sounds rather nice... what programming language do you use for the ATtiny? Does it need an external oscillator? How long do you think the battery would last? Would the LED be ramped using PWM?
 

TheButtonThief

Joined Feb 26, 2011
237
ATtiny85 uses the "Arduino" language which is basically C/C++ with a few slight differences, tiny85 has in internal oscillator (8Mhz) and yes, PWM. Atmel AVR's have a sort of power save mode but since (in this case) the output would constantly by high, I'm not sure it would work well. However, many of my projects with the tiny85 run off 2AA's and last for weeks (up to about 6) on constant supply, some with a few CR2032 cells that last just short of 5 days.

A few CR2032 cells, a chip and an LED =)
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
ATtiny85 uses the "Arduino" language which is basically C/C++ with a few slight differences, tiny85 has in internal oscillator (8Mhz) and yes, PWM. Atmel AVR's have a sort of power save mode but since (in this case) the output would constantly by high, I'm not sure it would work well. However, many of my projects with the tiny85 run off 2AA's and last for weeks (up to about 6) on constant supply, some with a few CR2032 cells that last just short of 5 days.

A few CR2032 cells, a chip and an LED =)
I'm an expert in the 8051, and I'd like to migrate to a 32 bit MCU... right now I'm seriously considering Atmel's ARM product series. That's why I'm curious about the ATtiny... the thing is that I don't like C/C++ since most of the applications I make are time and sync critical... that's why I do all my programming in assembly
 

TheButtonThief

Joined Feb 26, 2011
237
I'm an expert in the 8051, and I'd like to migrate to a 32 bit MCU... right now I'm seriously considering Atmel's ARM product series. That's why I'm curious about the ATtiny... the thing is that I don't like C/C++ since most of the applications I make are time and sync critical... that's why I do all my programming in assembly
Ahh, Atmel AVR's are only 8 bit. The ATtiny85 is simply the 8pin little brother of the ATmega328. The 328 is 8 bit/16Mhz (with external oscillator) and the 85 is also 8 bit but only 8Mhz. I think there are other packages available (eg. 16 pin) but none are 32 bit.

I like them, they're cheap (the 85 is about £1 here in the UK and the 328 about £3), easy to program, they have loads of features that PIC's have, loads of support available for them and the dev board (Arduino) is dirt cheap and nice and small. They have their limitations but can still do allot of stuff that PICs can do.

Don't mean to hijack the thread =/
 
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