Forums > Technical Discussion > Aran & Andy's Workshop Thread

Posted: 28th Dec 2006
Glad to see I wasn't the only one with that idea

Good job I let you try it first!

"I used to want to change the world, now I just wanna leave the room with a little dignity..." - Lotus Weinstock

Posted: 29th Dec 2006
not bad for 6 quid though

sure I saw a Darth maul glow staff in toys r us...

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.

Posted: 29th Jan 2007
EL glowing masquerade mask for glow spinning (fire spinning would wash out EL wire ... also its a tad flammable!)



https://www.homeofpoi.com/gallery/showpho...=all&page=1




https://www.homeofpoi.com/gallery/showpho...=all&page=1





The elwire around the flames needs to be smoothed, as well as actual more ELwire added to the flame effect. If it gets too heavy, more elastic straps will be needed too (like a torch that straps on your head has 3 straps?). I also need to learn to solder - electrical tape is a decent temporary fixing though, but it comes undone quite easily - not at all good for shows yet. There's suprisingly good visibility too out of the eye holes - the whole mask needs to curve a bit more too ... but thats just my face though
EDITED_BY: akgraphics (1170112833)

Posted: 6th May 2007
Me and CrazyAndy are making a programmable glowstaff - a nice cross between my engineering course and Andy's computer science course - I'm in charge of circuits and construction, and Andy is in charge of programming our microcontroller. The shaft is a centre-section of a flowtoys staff, using the rubber end caps that came with it. Powered by 4 AA batteries, we're using a PIC16F88 microprocessor, programmed in assembly, with 48 superbright RGB LEDs. The way the PCB is set up, allows us to use less LEDs if we wish for greather battery life. As it stands, we have barely 50 minutes of battery life - but the staff is so damn bright, we thought it was worth it



Speaking of the PCB, it is an extremely long thin pcb running down the length of the staff. For this first prototype, we can only do 7 colours (red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta and white) but this is a software limitation that we're working on. Colours can be smoothly faded across (using PWM) or block colour sequences can be constructed. The staff is split up into quarters - each quarter is individually programmable. The shaft is polycarbonate, and we're hoping to coat it in silicone to add grip and diffuse the light.



https://www.homeofpoi.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=16214








As you can see, all we have physically is an empty shaft, and a breadboard showing just 8 LEDs. Once the PCB is prototyped, we can stuff it in the shaft, add some shock absorbers, and take it for a spin! Hopefully for the end of June. We only have one shot at making the PCB, so we're spending a lot of time making sure its conceptually correct and working before spending our hard-earned on it!



Thanks to hyperlight and polarlight ... your material has been really inspirational! Fingers crossed this will work out
EDITED_BY: akgraphics (1178454568)

Posted: 24th May 2007
The PCB for the glowstaff is complete, we're ordering from www.pcb-pool.com - cheapest we've found. In 8-days time, we'll be able to slot and solder our components in! God I hope we havn't made any mistakes in the design ... we spent about 2 weeks error-checking it! rah... why is all pcb design software ridiculously hard to use!

I'm glad that part of the design stage is over ... now for construction and testing (yay!). We ordered some silicone sheet off eBay to wrap around the polycarb shaft for grip and diffusion. It's uber grippy, but a bit too squidgy... a bit unpleasant, but oh well ...

Posted: 24th May 2007
coming to Play? hope so and that you can get a prototype ready to show off

Blinded by Hyperlights, please donate generously

Posted: 24th May 2007
No I'm working unfortunately I'm using up my holiday allowance to hang out with the burning man crowd at Nowhere07 in spain! I'll definately be coming to London for a spin over the holidays, I'll keep an eye on the events forums. Fingers crossed it works for then.

We also need a name. We're fairly happy with 'shiny pimp cane' but it doesn't have a ring to it like aerotech or hyper/polar light. Don't want it to be too serious either :

AAAARGH my fire extinguisher just went off in my bag! where the hell was the safety pin ok gtg clean that up ... powder everywhere! its kinda like talcum powder ... hopefully less flammable!

Posted: 31st May 2007
Hey guys, I'm the programmer of this project. Its going to be amazing, the video doesn't do the brightness any justice.

I'm planning on going to play, and if we havn't destroyed the staff at nowhere then I'll prob bring it with me, if Aran can bear to let it out of his sight.

Posted: 31st May 2007
sounds awesome: hope to get a peek at this when I go back to cambridge!

as for a name: how about 'disco-tech' ?

Because ActiveAngel sounds like a feminine deodorant

Like sex, I'm much more interesting in real life than online.

'Be the change you want to see in the world around you' - Ghandi

Posted: 11th Jun 2007
Discotech ... a bit close to aerotech for my liking



(!!! warning: gratuitous use of macro focus below !!!)




Non-Https Image Link




(posted using flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/95841866@N00/540923090/)



Its all falling into place ...
EDITED_BY: akgraphics (1181585553)

Posted: 12th Jun 2007
Looks pretty cool to me; Just need some components on there now - nice one!

Cake or Death?

Posted: 12th Jun 2007
interesting masquerade masks... you should check out my gallery from a year ago or some of the pics here https://www.flamefireshows.com/slides/flame%20team.html

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.

Posted: 12th Jun 2007
Cool stuff Mynci - I thought I saw someone wearing a blue one of those EL-wire suits at the last synergy - was he really tall or wearing stilts?!



I've recently started adding blue LEDs to everything ... conveniently gutted from the above-mentioned lightsabers...



https://images.tribe.net/tribe/upload/photo/2a8/9a2/2a89a20f-efde-461c-8424-798e1ea3baf8
EDITED_BY: akgraphics (1181656932)

Posted: 16th Jun 2007
holy crap everyone: news flash *****

we just spent about 5 hours soldering, and are almost complete. we have 3/4 of the staff working with the PIC, and it looks amazing. No strobbing effects, and damn bright too.

We will upload pics / vids asap.

we currently have just less than 2 weeks to build in another tonne of sequences, coat the tube in plasti-dip, fix the last 1/4 and attach some wooden clamps, to stop it moving about. Other than the plasti-dip, we expect to be done within 2 - 3 days.

Looking forward to the public beta testing (yes, I am a comp sci student) at nowhere / play

Posted: 17th Jun 2007
Ha I can't believe you stayed up long enough to post on here Andy! I dropped off straight to bed ...

Yes its bright, yes we can move it about very fast without any discernible gaps in the light-trails, yes we can program any sequence of colours. Yes my eyes STILL have ghost-images of 12 points of light neatly arrayed in a line. Probably burned on my retinas forever.

Images when I can get access to a bluetooth-computer so I can get the eye-candy off my phone. Huzzah!

Posted: 17th Jun 2007
I cba sleeping, too excited

Posted: 18th Jun 2007
https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4932713713541937619

its ready y'alls, the video is very low frame rate, as was taken using my laptops camera. I'll post more when I get hold of a better camera. Its currently been on almost non stop for 1hr 10 mins, and still seems as bright as ever.

Its had some pretty bad knocks allready, with no permenent damage (battery fell out etc).

Posted: 18th Jun 2007
No heavy damage?! I nearly cracked my skull open on that thing! ps. use youtube, the videos embed into the forums!

Posted: 18th Jun 2007
I cba to make an account on youtube, 3 hours of running, and no dimming as far as I can see

Posted: 19th Jun 2007
Do superflux LEDs draw about the same sort of amount as normal LEDs (~30mA?)?

30mA x 48 LEDs ~= 1.5A draw from the batteries

...so if you were had (say) 2500mAh AAs which is about the limit (at this moment) that's ~100 minutes by my reckoning (assuming you were able to extract the batteries entire rated charge).

Looking good - well done guys! I look forward to seeing this thing at PLAY - it'll be interesting to see how HyperLights compare

Cake or Death?

Posted: 19th Jun 2007
you are exactly correct our estimate for battery life was 1 hour (if all RG and B lights where on, neglecting power loss in other components)

Its currently been running for 11 hours non stop. and is still quite bright (don't think its as bright as it was, but it is day time now :\ )

I don't know what to say, I'm amazed.

Just measured the pd accross the power rails. ~4.35V, and it started at about 5.5V

Posted: 19th Jun 2007
i want one. i want one.

O.B.E.S.E.

Owned by Mynci!

Posted: 19th Jun 2007
Looking good guys. If you bring it to the pub on thursday I can bring my camera and we can shoot some higher quality footage if you want?

Posted: 20th Jun 2007
Tom that sounds like a great idea! We'll try to be there.

The staff FINALLY ran out of juice 20 hours after we first charged her up and turned her on. First, the green LEDs stopped working completely, then the blue. The patterns were stil working correctly, but just the red LEDs were illuminating. Giving an interesting "low power" red theme.

I assume that if we have all the LEDs firing at the same time, we would have the predicted battery life of about 1 hour . But with your average fading sequence, a life of >10 hours is absolutely stunningly unbelievable. Hurray!

Now just for some plasti-dip...

Posted: 23rd Jun 2007
New video for your viewing pleasure




Motley

Posted: 23rd Jun 2007
yay, it looks awesome.

comments about stuff:

a) you may notice a few probs with the staff (the red of 1 quater lags, we replaced the transitor with the same problem, not sure whats going on just yet. The video didn't include it crashing, which the pic does way too often atm, usually on a bang / knock, we think its battery based, but we have a master reset button no, which fxes that prob sort of.)

b) the colors are brighter in rl, again, to the extend looking at it for too long, close to the spinner can start to hurt your eyes.

c) theses are our initial patterns, which we thought would look good in theory, but we need to work on timings + color theory, to maximise the potential of the staff.

personally, i feel for mark 1, this is an excellent design, we know what to do better next time, and have a working prototye.

Any suggestions / comments are welcome + encouraged,good or bad, although I may be forced to insult your mother if too many bad ones come in

Looking forward to seeing you all at play.

Posted: 23rd Jun 2007
its a bit short... :P

T

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti

Posted: 23rd Jun 2007
we designed it to fit in a flow toys tube, so we didn't need to get our own poly carb tube, as the end caps for the flow toys one, are perfect for what we wanted. the next model will be longer, lots longer.



edit: Aran, check https://forum.tvsushi.com/index.php?showtopic=52662 especially the post by Bregg (the one with tonnes of smilies), and especially noting his naming ideas.
EDITED_BY: crazy_andy (1182642241)

Posted: 24th Jun 2007
looks good: one thing i would recommend is finding a way around the 'invisible' (non glowy) ends, I find they tend to catch you unawares in all sorts of nasty places!

Because ActiveAngel sounds like a feminine deodorant

Like sex, I'm much more interesting in real life than online.

'Be the change you want to see in the world around you' - Ghandi

Posted: 24th Jun 2007
That looks pretty cool; well done guys!

One thing that might make your patterns more distinctive is to briefly turn the LEDs off between changing colours. I use that a lost in the sequences I do for my HyperLights and it looks really cool

Cake or Death?