The fun of having a giant resistor-shaped Ohmmeter is that it reads back the resistance by displaying the color code. If you’re not too hot with decoding those bands there’s a helper band to the right which will display the value numerically.
All of the electronics are housed in the opaque part of the resistor, making for a nice low-profile base. The bent leads are hollow and allow [Sebastian] and his friend to run power and measurement leads through to the power connector on the back and the pair of banana jacks near the front. Each translucent ring houses an RGB LED, except for the one on the right which has four 7-segment display modules embedded in it. An ATmega168 takes the measurements using its Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) to read the value from a voltage divider. You can see a quick demo of the Ohmmeter in the video after the jump.
This would be a fun thing to pair with that giant breadboard.
Cool idea but I would paint the board green or red to look like a PCB.
Lol,
I’d list this pretty high on the pointless machines category. Apart from the numeric display :)
This art and art and art is anything but pointless
correction: This is art and art is anything but pointless
lol
Useful for people that have bad eye sight and can’t see the stripes on a small resistor or find a magnifying glass.
Next they should make a plugin for google glasses that converts digital clock faces in to watch hands.
Ha. That’s adorable.
Indeed! It’s a great idea, and really nice workmanship, too. I really appreciate hacks like this that create something beautiful as well as functional.
For those of you who don’t know or have a hard time remembering the color codes. Remember them by their order in the spectrum. http://www.tvhistory.tv/Baird-Slide-44-Color-Spectrum.JPG , with each color step add a zero starting from black.
Sadly the only colour codes I have ever managed to remember for any length of time are the ones for snooker, because of that damned Chas & Dave song back in the 80s – I can still remember the sequence to this day :(
BBROYGBVGW
I, unfortunately, can’t repeat the sentence by which I remember that sequence of letters because it’s not politically correct nor family-friendly. On the other hand, it’s very effective. I only ever heard one professor recite it and I’ve never forgotten it since. :-)
Though – It does give me an idea for an RGB clock since each color represents a number…..
if youre refering to the bad boys sentance there is another that is a bit more pg13, bad beer rots our young guts but vodka goes well
One improvement. They should have two metal plates on the board instead of post jacks (or along with). This way you can just press the resistor into place without needing cables.
Great build and a cool idea overall. This thing would be good in a classroom.
There are resistors lurking out there that have more bands than this though…
And nice mega-grabbers on that 1/8 watt. Don’t want that guy getting away.
Pretty! :D
That is so, so funny! I actually laughed. Hey- based on the size of it, wouldn’t that be, like, a 1KW resistor? Pretty neat.
One thing, isn’t displaying brown light in RGB a big problem?
How do you think your TV does it ?
badly :P
With modern manufacturing techniques, there’s no reason not to just laser/screen the value on the part, using ancient color banding in this day and age is ridiculous.
I concur with this assessment.
Switch to smd.
Considering that the color banding machine already exists at the factory, and that a laser would take longer than to run it through the color machine, that would mean significantly more expensive THM resistors.
Also, you can read the bands from further away than a laser/screen, and they’re less likely to fade/rub off in 30 years … you know, if you make something of lasting value.
true, but the bands have a tendency to become discolored, especially with heat, which is a bit of a problem when you’re trying to identify that burnt resistor in your old tube radio.
For those of us that are color blind, this change is WAAAAAAY overdue.
The most significant advantage, IMHO, of color bands over laser printing is that they can be read from any rotation of the resistor. A laser printed part might be turned such that the numbers aren’t easy to read, or even upside down. Color bands can be “read” from any rotation or orientation.
This. Looks. Awesome!
One of the cleverest ideas I’ve seen in a long time. So obvious when someone else has already done it! Kudos
That’s so much fun. Great practice for learning the bands, too. Kind of pointless to measure actual resistors that already have the bands…but neat for other resistive loads.
Sell it to the scientologists as a new e-meter or hippies as an aura gauge.
“You’re aura is red… make it green, make it green”.
An E-meter is just an overprice ohm meter in a crappy case – apparently thetans have resistance or something.
Haha I really love this giant resistor :-)
Beautiful, awesome build!