Forums > Technical Discussion > Hyperlights update...

I've been busy designing recently and I'm happy to report I've made some serious progress! I've very nearly got the final prototype board fleshed out and a design I reckon ought to work very well for the casing.


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I'll send off for the first set of prototype boards some time next week (still needs some tweaking and double-checking). I need to investigate a few more companies to find someone to make my polycarbonate balls. Just need to get the software up to scratch now. As it stands you'd need to have some special hardware to add new light sequences etc. into them... once I've got my head around a few things, you'll just be able to plug your hyperlights into a USB socket, fire up your software and tell them what you want!

Watch this space

Cake or Death?

Spherculism ~:~ The Act of becoming Spherculish.

I left uni a couple of years ago now.. these have been developed in my spare time

There's a(n old) video I made here which shows them off as they were about a year ago!

The main benefit? Well, they're brighter than aerotechs, and will work similarly to their new 'ultimate' range. i.e. re-programmable via the USB port on your computer. The LED is indeed at the top. It fires up into a sort of sock:


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The advantage being that the whole top area lights up. It also means they spin like sock poi so you can do wraps, hyperloops etc. etc.

They have accelerometers in them so in theory (I've not yet tested this too thoroughly) I ought to be able to work out where in the spin they are so you could do cool stuff like making them do one circle of green then one circle of blue... oh, did I mention you can do any colour of the rainbow?

I'm really keen to share all the patterns people come up with so I'll be setting up a website where everyone can upload their own patterns and download others. There's still a fair amount of work to be done on that side of things, but I'm getting the hardware sorted first... and it's getting close to the point where I'll have some v3 (final) prototypes for people to play with. With a little bit of luck, I'll have something ready for PLAY!

Cake or Death?

Wow Jon, that's definately some progress!! :-)
Good going, but I will catch up some day! I am now pretty much as far as the old hyperlight video...

Well, let's say we start a company of LED juggling products soon?

"Don�t know how long, this one�s gonna take;
I could fail, but I�d rather be a fuckup, than a fake"

I'm sure collaboration on some level could work

Cake or Death?

"My skin is singed but it heals my heart and with glowing pride I'll wear my scars." -Davey Havok

That's wicked



I thought by the look of it the led was on the other side, but pointing into a difuser is the perfect solution imo.



full rgb leds are the only way to go.



usb coding is very cool. The user interface will be critical. Had any thougths about what language to use? Would be sweet if you could assign values like

Code:

(t=time, R=red, B=blue, G=green, !=NOT)



for (t>0:t<100){ //from o to 100 time intervals

R=sin(t); //red led is on a sine cuve

G=cos(t); //green is on a cosine curve

B=!B; //blue flashes on / off

}





for (t>100:t<200){ //then from 100 to 200

R=cos(2t); //red is on a cosine curve at twice the frequency

G=!G; //green flashes on off

B=sin(t/2); //blue is on a sin curve at half the frequency

}



Then you could use functions, eg



function blueflash(){

B=!B;

}



Then is the code you could set functions eg



for (t>0:t<10){

blueflash;

}

for (t>10:t<30){

redflash;

}

for (t>30:t<60){

purpleflash;

}





That way most people can just use the functions, which shouldn't be too hard. Then others can write cool functions.



They look sweet as, will definitely be getting a set from you.



If you need any help gimme a shout, used to study industrial design and i'v ebeen wanting someone to develop this product for years.



1 thing, what made you put the batteries sideways, i think lengthways would be better cos less turning moment along the axis of the poi would mean more control i think.



Good luck



matt

Spherculism ~:~ The Act of becoming Spherculish.

The original prototypes ran off 4 AA's but I really hated how heavy they were... which is why the new ones run off 2 AAA's



The language will be along those lines although it will most likely be a little less complicated. One thing I'm really keen to encourage is sharing all the patterns that everyone (and myself of course) comes up with, I've got a few ideas which (if they work) could be pretty cool



Not sure what you mean about the battery? Do you mean putting them inline with the LED? The problem with that is you can't make it as compact; it'd end up being a tube instead of a ball which won't be as nice to spin IMHO..

Cake or Death?

Wicked Jon, it all looks amazing. One question:

When can I have some?

"I believe the cost of life is Death and we will all pay that in full. Everything else should be a gift. We paid the cover charge of life, we were born."

Bill Hicks, February 1988

Soon ...I've been thinking about staff designs too and I think I have something that'll work rather well. Same technology but with the LEDs at either end. The only problem with the staffs is that they may be too light! Might need big rocks on the end or something

Cake or Death?

"The original prototypes ran off 4 AA's but I really hated how heavy they were... "

..heavy's good. Admittedly most people think the stuff I spin is far too heavy so mines a minority opinion.

"I'm quite good at darts, though i often miss" - Kylie

"I'm not a bad driver, I just panic when theres other cars around" - Sarah

It's much easier to add weights to toys than it is to try and take it off. Don't worry, I have some cunning plans that will mean making them heavier should be easy

Cake or Death?

"I'm quite good at darts, though i often miss" - Kylie

"I'm not a bad driver, I just panic when theres other cars around" - Sarah

Depending on feedback I get from the first sets, I could conceivably produce some which could hold more batteries... they'd need a slightly different housing (a bit bigger) but it's certainly possible. At the moment, the balls should end up ~6.3cm in diameter

Cake or Death?

All sounds excellent.

Don't mind what the sytax is like - just so long as you can assign the led values to sin waves and time i'll be very happy. I thought that was a good syntax to use since it's already used for many coding languages (javascript, actionscript, c++;,....) That means there's gotta be 1000 people on hop who already know it and could write functions for you in minutes. Plus you would mostly only need 3 lines of code, which would take about 10 seconds to write.

But anything will do really.

2AAA batteries is sweet, thought they were AA's which looked a bit heavy. Also have you considered the rechargable little batteries you get now? They are always a crazy lime green color and i've got some in my mr babache diabolo. They are wicked little batteries. Take up next to no space. They recharge pretty quick and seem a really good option. But then AAA's have benefit that you can just go to any shop and get replacements.

You could always leave a cavity in the design to fill with extra weight so people can adjust it.

Super exited about these, if you need any testers

m

Spherculism ~:~ The Act of becoming Spherculish.

 Written by: TheWibbler

Don't mind what the sytax is like - just so long as you can assign the led values to sin waves and time i'll be very happy.


I'm not sure you'll be able to set sin waves (maths on an integer processor ain't so easy), but you'll certainly be able to fade colours up and down so you'll be able to approximate one pretty easily.

 Written by: TheWibbler

AAA's have benefit that you can just go to any shop and get replacements.


Precisely the reason I'm using them. It'd be crap if you ran down the batteries and still wanted to spin. If you can just pop to a shop and grab some extras (or swap in your spare rechargeables) it'd be much easier to spin for longer

 Written by: TheWibbler

You could always leave a cavity in the design to fill with extra weight so people can adjust it.


Funnily enough, there is a cavity which will work perfectly for this! I plan on adding a screw thread in there so you can just screw in extra weight if you need it

I have many volunteers to test them... I'll add you to the list

Cake or Death?

Huzzah! I just placed an order for four prototype PCB's to be produced. They should be in my hands in ~1 week

Cake or Death?

will we see anything new at play?

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

That's my plan! Ideally (read not going to happen ) I'll have figured out how to get the USB bit working on my PIC and following that, a bootloader so we don't need any special hardware to re-program (other than a USB cable that is)!

I've emailed a few companies about getting some prototypy housings built as well, but those will almost certainly not be ready for PLAY

Cake or Death?

I'll give you a free ticket to play if I can have a set

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

Nice try Sym, but I already have my ticket Shouldn't be too long now (hopefully) before you can buy a pair though!

I'm hoping they'll end up cheaper than aerotech's. As it stands (and please bear in mind this is just an educated guess) I'd say the first batch will probably cost ~�100 for a pair. I can make them cheaper if I make more at once though and there's still a fair few bits and pieces to work through before they're ready!

Cake or Death?

I know I'll be buying at least two sets

What exactly is ~�100? 100 euro or 100 GBP?

Any chance at incorporating an eye hole on the sphere for those of us who may want to attach them to our chains?

Also, what is the estimated lifespan of those AAA batteries? I assume the LEDs pull a lot of current.

"My skin is singed but it heals my heart and with glowing pride I'll wear my scars." -Davey Havok

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.

i just read an earlier thread about the type of led's u use. i have a petzl head torch and that thing is BRIGHT!



i think you are right when you say that the video dosent do them justice!



bring them to play! please. ive been wanting to have a go ever since asena started going on about them to me.



good luck, they look awesome

Owner of Dragosani's right side.

"I'm quite good at darts, though i often miss" - Kylie

"I'm not a bad driver, I just panic when theres other cars around" - Sarah