You may have seen my yellow-M&M radio guy before. It displays my lighten-up theme well.
You may have also seen clips of my "junk-bots" or recycled bits of various things that have an old motor and batteries in it. (playing around tab has a collection)
I've started a hobby of taking thing apart (old tape players, CD players, radios, whatever) and salvaging parts.
You may have also seen clips of my "junk-bots" or recycled bits of various things that have an old motor and batteries in it. (playing around tab has a collection)
I've started a hobby of taking thing apart (old tape players, CD players, radios, whatever) and salvaging parts.
I thought of a fairly simple circuit I could piece together from my part collection the other day. Not every component is used but most are. The wires hanging on yellow-M&M form a circuit made up of a used transistor, a few resistors, a capacitor and wired connectors from a boombox. The new components are two flashing LED's.
After experimenting with a few different values of components I got the result of a slow fading flash. I have an idea of making a light for a kid's display. In this version the fading flash is inside a clear tube that came from an old pen.
After wiring it up with the odd connectors and jumper wires (the final version would have the wires trimmed to short lengths) I draped it over the M&M guy.
Trying it out in a dark room I was surprised to discover the circuit was light sensitive. In the dark it would cycle through a sequence and then stop. Turn the room light on and it would start up again. The light sensitive part (multicolored LED) didn't come with any specifications. What I found online never said anything about light sensitivity.
I filmed a short clip of it flashing and then added that to an early clip I did with the M&M radio guy.
It's delightful or "alightful" - please watch it's only about a minute long and has great background music.
After wiring it up with the odd connectors and jumper wires (the final version would have the wires trimmed to short lengths) I draped it over the M&M guy.
Trying it out in a dark room I was surprised to discover the circuit was light sensitive. In the dark it would cycle through a sequence and then stop. Turn the room light on and it would start up again. The light sensitive part (multicolored LED) didn't come with any specifications. What I found online never said anything about light sensitivity.
I filmed a short clip of it flashing and then added that to an early clip I did with the M&M radio guy.
It's delightful or "alightful" - please watch it's only about a minute long and has great background music.
12 comments:
If only my dad had these minature electronic do-dads. His sonar contraption would have fit on one shelf in his workshop.
sonar contraption - for fishing? Did he build it himself? I must say I haven't built very many useful items at home.
My kids do a lot of deconstructing too - there is something appealing about taking things apart.
Love the titling. What did you use for that?
the movie clip was made with imovie on the mac. It has many transitions and text options.
you can discover how things work by doing that. You also get lots of extra nuts and bolts that always come in handy.
Love it and the background music was perfect addition!
Lisleman, you are quite the inventor creator reconstructor! And the music, awesome!
you crazy loon, you!! :-)
Bill, you are a man of many amazing talents, this little guy is so cute, I'm truly impressed at your creative recycling abilities! Incidentally, I can never hear, "Love is a many splendered thing", without my heart melting - it's in the backtrack to the first film that ever made me cry - I think it was about a Japanese woman who fell in love with a WW2 soldier (I was about 5, and very impressionable). I still remember the vase crashing to the floor when he died!
thanks - I like the build-up used in that song. I'm sure there is a musical term for it. I need to wikipedia the song and see if I can find that film. cheers.
That's pretty spectacular. I feel like I'm looking at my own life with the engineer 30 years into the future...
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