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.
