Tag Archives: led

Bone Dragon Moonlight Clock

Posted also on:
https://www.instructables.com/id/Bone-Dragon-Moonlight-Clock/

Entered in contest: https://www.instructables.com/contest/clocks2020/

Some time ago I built a clock for my living room, since I found nothing to buy which had at least tolerable designs πŸ™‚

Of course my son seeing this had a request of his own. So to summarize, he said he wants:

  • a radio controlled clock
  • with a dragon on it
  • on top of a moon
  • which has a night light which starts automatically at night
  • using black light for some extra style

Supplies:

  • a radio controlled clock module (this one)
  • round acrylic glass
  • wodden base
  • wire for the structure
  • dry braches
    etc. to be specified in the next steps

OK, so I started with the electronics. In this part I wanted to do the following:

  • night light using some 5050 led strips
  • black light using 5050 uv light led strips (396 nm light)
  • make it all with solar charged batteries using this ripped up diy kit
  • charge by day and go on automatically by night

So I started putting all together like shown in the fritzing sketch: 3x 10kO resistors, a simple photoresistor and a TIP120 transistor. All connected with the 12V leds and the 3.7V battery/solar charging module (also used a 3.7V to 12V voltage step-up converter)

I went on to build the actual clock. I started painting the back side of the acrylic glass with:
Amsterdam Specialities – black light reflective paints

Started with yellow, and went on with some orange/red to give it a moon-like structure paint. While painting it I used a black light flash light to check the effect.

After that I fixed the clock module in the center of the glass.

OK, for the eyes you need to take the time since they have to be nice.

First I printed something from the internet, in the style I wanted. Then I cut out the form from the bottom of a plastic bottle. Then I painted them on the inside starting with black, then yellow, then the red base.

Then I cut out a wooden circle and inside a rectangle to fit the clockwork.

Then using a lot of wire I started to form the base of the dragon, which later on had to hold the branches and twigs. It consists of 3 parts: the head, the wings and the tail.

I had to watch the form having in mind that the mouth should be lit, the eyes need a plain spot, the wings need to cover the black light led strips and hold the solar charging module.

Now every part of the dragons I planned to do with twigs, but the inside of the mouth and the wings had to look more real so I used some papermache, which will be painted red in the next step.

The teeth (also twig parts) I fixed first with hot glue, and covered with papermache.

For this next step I almost melted my hot glue gun πŸ™‚

I started covering all the base of the dragon with cut twigs, following its form and body parts. It took some time but it is really fun to see how he grows πŸ™‚

Also used some twigs on the wings to give everywhere the impression this dragon consists only of bones … hence “Bone Dragon”

For some finishing touch we made it all shiny with a clear coat spray. I sprayed some more on the inside of the mouth.

At the end I put on the electronics and glued all parts in place:

  • the photoresistor is on its tail
  • the solar panel on the wings
  • the black light led strip is under the wings
  • 3 small light strips (3 leds each) are under the eyes and in the mouth
    So when lit, the paints on the moon start to reflect the light looking like glowing.

Hope you had fun, we sure did πŸ™‚

Christmas tree – Arduino Leds

Video: https://youtu.be/7wwv_Az_uWw

Actually this is a project which I started last year and was not able to finish it then.

Using WS2811 led lights (not strips) I thought about making a Christmas tree light being able to control every single led using an Arduino. This is actually very simple. For about 100 lights, I used a 10A power source just to be sure. Also next year I might add another 50 lights to it.

The best part about it is the programming. I found a lot of programs online. Took the nicest one, combined and tweaked them, and here is the result…

Fire lamp (final)

This is the continuation of http://blog.familie-fratila.de/fire-lamp/

Also posted it on Instructables:

https://www.instructables.com/id/Fire-Lamp-1/

After buying a normal lamp, just to take the “shell” of it, I had now all the parts I needed to build the final Fire Lamp.

I stripped the bought lamp of all inside electronics, and replaced it with my own. The glass of the lamp, gives it now pretty nice effect. Besides some tweaks and maybe more programs coded, I can say it is finished.

Yeelight Strip Hacking

Everyone who knows me a little bit, knows how crazy I am about Xiaomi products. No other company I know offers such a wide spectrum of products, so good quality of components used to build theese products, and such great prices.

I recently bought a Yeelight LED strip to integrate in my Xiaomi Smart Home system. It is a high quality product, with many features. The only downside is the length of 2m. It is not bright enough for the whole living room. So I decided to do a little experiment: cut out the led strip and the power source, and solder a 5m strip and a more powerful power source.

Since I love theese products so much, this was very painful πŸ™‚ but I did it anyway. The results were positive. I successfully replaced the LEDs with a 5m long 5050 RGB LED strip and a 5A power source. Everything still works with the app and the scenes. The only downside on this solution was that the colors were not exactly the same as I expected. Obviously the 5m strip was not the same quality as the ones from Yeelight. I will need to find some better ones.

Or just wait for the new Yeelight LED strip which will be 10m long I hear.

Toothless (Final)

wpid-wp-1444588304116.jpeg

THIS IS THE CONTINUATION OF THE PROJECT:

http://blog.familie-fratila.de/toothless-base-form/

It always takes a little time until I finish my works, but I finally made it.

From my last post, the next step was painting the background, clouds, mountains, rock, etc.

Then I had to create back spikes from silicone, since the led strip from the back had still to be visible through the spikes.Β  I added also the electronic parts: light resistor on the right wing, proximity sensor on the nose, side uv led strips and 2 blue leds in the mouth.

Finally the painting looks like this:

wpid-wp-1444588307341.jpeg

Toothless (Base form)

20150721_174800

I guess there are not many kids theese days who don’t know him: Toothless fromΒ  “How to train your dragon”. I thought I give it a try, since after the firefighter truck for my son, my daughter now also wants some “light effects” in her room.

So the original ideea was to create a Toothless model from the 2nd movie, which can also light up in blue. The final model will be a painting around a toothless model, with blue leds in the mouth to simulate the plasma, a short blue led strip on top of Toothless to light up the spines, 2 uv blacklight led strips on the side to simulate the light on the scales (which will be painted with blacklight paint) a photoresistor which detects day/night (at night it will turn on a night light by default) and an infrared distance measuring sensor on its nose, as a trigger for the “plasma” and to cycle through all programs.

So I started to model the dragon in Blender, and prepared it afterwards for printing in Pepakura. After some hours of work it was cut out and sticked together.

The next step was a layer of paper mache for it to get stronger, and some black spraypaint as the base color.

Then I used some almond seeds and again paper mache to make the teeth. And for the eyes I used a part from a plastic bottle and the printed eyes.

Now for the electronic part, I started to put everything together on a board. Mainly an Arduino Pro Mini will do all the tricks described at the beginning. It is easy to use and can be easily reprogrammed if changes are needed. I just really need to work on my electronics layout and soldering skills πŸ˜‰

After putting it all together, it looks like this:

Like the title says, this is only the first stage I tried to finish before the vacation. It still needs a lot of work.

Todo:

  • paint details on Toothles (nicer teeth, scales, uv paint, edges of eyes, edges of mouth, spines etc.)
  • paint the background (mountains, rocks, tree, sky) and the rock it stands on
  • put all lights on and wire all the electronics together

Automatic plant growth lamp

Having some leds lying around lazy, I had to put them to work πŸ˜‰

This is just a quick side project. We have a lovely hibiscus home which has quite a high sentimental value to us. But sadly it hardly got any flowers. I thought it is time for a little help.

I read some articles which point out that wavelenghts of 630 nm (red) and 460 nm (blue), are very good for the growth of a plant.Β  70% red, 30% blue would be ideal for getting flowers and a strong plant. This matches almost to the point the wavelenghts of the led strip I got.

Next I wanted to preserve the day-night cycle which a plant needs, which schould remain the real day-night cycle. For that puprose I developed a little light sensing electronic part, which turns the leds on if it is day outside, and back off at night.

Hope we get some flowers soon πŸ™‚

 

Bioluminescent Forest

http://www.instructables.com/id/UV-black-light-painting-for-everyone/

Since I was a child I was fascinated by fluorescence, phosphorescence and bioluminescence. Seing the movie Avatar was the cherry on top that motivated me to make some of my own decorations.

Some time ago I discovered what UV painting is and decided to try it out. A few Artists I found also tried to merge daylight painting with UV painting. Meaning that by day you see a normal painting, and if the room goes dark, and uv light is on, the painting looks just like a scene from Avatar by night, glowing, shining, … and suddenly I wanted to make this a hobby of my own.