Electro Art
Hanging Robot Machine
A little demonstration of my eight channel hanging robot animator. This configuration uses two chained controllers (PIC processors) and is being controlled by a laptop which is sending Bezier spline information to the controllers to interpolate position information. Details can be found here:
Nixie Tube Clock
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This is a little clock made from 4 Russian Nixie tubes. A 16F877 microcontroller in the aluminum box controls the display which spends half the time showing the time and the other half the time generating animations with the neon digits. The high voltage power supply is located in the oak box.
Dig
Proof of Concept
Tubes + Drivers
Display Board
Power Supply
Neon Lamp Flasher
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This is a recreation of the first electronic kit that I made. The circuit is a little DC-to-DC converter to create 150V from 9V with neon lamps that are sequenced with capacitors and resistors. I glued the lamps into a little piece of oak with an oil finish and aluminum legs. The original was a kit available from Radio Shack.
5x7 Dot Matrix Display
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This is a little 8 inch tall device that uses a 16F628A microcontroller, a 5x7 LED dot matrix display and 2 AA batteries. Animations and random messages are displayed for about an hour after the button is pushed. After that, the microcontroller goes back to sleep to save battery power. I made 8 of these for Christmas presents a few years back.
Gravitron
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This is a one meter long piece of oak with 57 LEDs that simulates a ball falling from a meter high and bouncing on the floor. A push button at the top starts the "ball" falling. A knob on the side controls how bouncy the ball is. Once the ball stops bouncing, the Gravitron turns itself off to conserve battery power.
Light Shaker
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This little device when held in your hand and shaken left to right will use persistence of vision to spell our random phrases in the air. The washers attached to the wire act as an accelerometer to detect motion and time the flashing of the LEDs. The little phone jack is used to connect the device up to a serial port to download different messages or graphical patterns.