Neon Lamps Make For The Coolest Of Nixie Clocks

March 21, 2018 by Inderpreet Singh 10 Comments

Revisiting old projects is always fun and this Nixie Clock by [pa3fwm] is just a classic. Instead of using transistors or microcontrollers, it uses neon lamps to clock and drive the Nixie Displays. The neon lamps themselves are the logic elements. Seriously, this masterpiece just oozes geekiness.

Inspired by the book “Electronic Counting Circuits” by J.B. Dance(ZIP), published in 1967, we covered the initial build a few years back. The fundamental concept of operation is similar to that of Neon Ring Counters. [Luc Small] has a write-up explaining the construction of such a device and some math associated with it. In this project, [pa3fwm] uses modern day neons that you find in indicators, so his circuit is also updated to compensate for the smaller difference in striking and maintaining voltages.

The original project was done in 2007 and has since undergone a few upgrades. [Pa3fwm] has modified the construction to make it wall mounted. Even though it’s not a precise timekeeper, the project itself is a keeper from its time. Check out the video below for a demonstration.

Feel inspired yet? Take a peek at the White Rabbit Nixie Clock and you are looking for a low voltage solution to powering Nixies then check out the 5-volt Nixie Power supply.

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Curved Wood LED Lamp Needs No Fancy Tools

March 20, 2018 by Donald Papp 9 Comments

Those of us who aren’t familiar with woodworking might not expect that this curved wood and acrylic LED lamp by [Marija] isn’t the product of fancy carving, just some thoughtful design and assembly work. The base is a few inches of concrete in a plastic bowl, then sanded and given a clear coat. The wood is four layers of beech hardwood cut on an inverted jigsaw with the middle two layers having an extra recess for two LED strips. After the rough-cut layers were glued together, the imperfections were rasped and sanded out. Since the layers of wood give a consistent width to the recess for the LEDs, it was easy to cut a long strip of acrylic that would match. Saw cutting acrylic can be dicey because it can crack or melt, but a table saw with a crosscut blade did the trick. Forming the acrylic to match the curves of the wood was a matter of gentle heating and easing the softened acrylic into place bit by bit.

Giving the clear acrylic a frosted finish was done with a few coats of satin finish clear coat from a spray can, which is a technique we haven’t really seen before. Handy, because it provides a smooth and unbroken coating along the entire length of the acrylic. This worked well and is a clever idea, but [Marija] could still see the LEDs and wires inside the lamp, so she covered them with some white tape. A video of the entire process is embedded below.

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Pi Weather Lamp Puts Lava Lamps To Shame

January 14, 2018 by Steven Dufresne 15 Comments

Representing the weather on an LED lamp in a manner that’s easy to interpret can be difficult, but [Gosse Adema]’s weather/matrix lamp makes it not only obvious what the weather is but also offers a very attractive display. For rain, drops of light move downward, and for wind, sideways. The temperature is shown using a range of colors from red to blue, and since he is situated in the Netherlands he needed snow, which he shows as white. A rainy, windy day has lights moving both down and sideways with temperature information as the background.

To implement it he mounted LED strips inside a 3D printed cylinder with reflectors for each LED, all of which fitted into a glass cylinder taken from another lamp purchased online. The brains of it is a Raspberry Pi Zero W housed in the bottom along with a fan. Both the LEDs and the fan are controlled by the Pi. He took a lot of care with power management, first calculating the current that the LEDs would draw, and then writing Python code to limit that draw. However upon measurement, the current draw was much lower than expected and so he resized the power supply appropriately. He also took care to correctly size the wires and properly distribute the power with a specially made power distribution board. Overall, we really like the thorough job he’s done.

But then again, what’s not to like about [Gosse]’s projects. In the area of lighting, he’s dazzled us with WiFi controlled Christmas tree ornaments, but he’s also delighted us with a Prusa i3 based LEGO 3D printer on which he printed LEGO parts and then made a special extruder for printing chocolate.

3D Printed Wave Lamp Forecasts The Weather

January 6, 2018 by Jenny List 4 Comments

While browsing Thingiverse, [Dushyant Ahuja] found a rather pleasing wave lamp, and since a mere lamp on its own would not quite be enough, he added a means by which his lamp could provide weather alerts by means of changing its color.

It’s fair to say that the wave lamp is not a print for the faint-hearted, and it took him 30 hours to complete. However, it has the interesting feature of not requiring a support or raft. There is also a base for the lamp designed to take a strip of addressable LEDs, and he modified its design to mount a small PCB containing an ESP8266 module and a level shifter chip. The code for the ESP relies on the OpenWeatherMap API, and changes the LED color based on the rainfall forecast.

Casting our minds back a decade, this lamp is reminiscent of the long-departed Nabaztag product, best described as an internet-connected plastic anthropomorphic rabbit that could keep you updated with information such as weather or stock market trends through lighting up and the movement of its ears. It was an overpriced idea tied into a proprietary online back end that was probably well before its time back in 2004. Perhaps repackaged for 2017 with a commodity microcontroller board Nabaztag has finally found its application.

There is a short video showing the color change and an LED animation, which we’ve put below the break.

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A Futuristic Plant To Inspire Bright Ideas

December 4, 2017 by James Hobson 16 Comments

A good video game prop can really spruce up the decor — doubly so if it’s a glowing, futuristic potted plant transplanted(sorry!) straight from Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Since it’s a bit difficult to grow neon light vines, this project is more lamp than plant. The maker with the green thumb is [Phil], from [JumperOneTV], and he is using five meters of warm white strip LEDs cut to varying vine lengths. He’s also procured a store-bought flower pot that conveniently mirrors the in-game model. The vines are made of 16mm polyethylene tubing which he’s shaped using a heat gun — setting their shape by pumping water through it — and secured in the pot with insulation foam. Feeding the LED strips through and wiring them in parallel was simple compared to his next conundrum: supplying the power.

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3D Printed Lamp Even Prints The Nuts And Bolts

October 10, 2017 by Inderpreet Singh 13 Comments

The first print to come off a shiny new 3D printer is usually a toy widget of some sort that will forever sit at your desk without purpose. The alternative is a practical project that is custom and personal like this 3D Printed Articulating Lamp. [IgorF2] shares his design for this wall mounted device which was created using Fusion 360.

The complete design consists of eight parts which includes the arms, nuts, and bolts, as well as the wall mount, each of which can be printed individually. These come together to form a structure that can be attached to a wall or your work bench. Though [IgorF2] has provided arm pieces of length 100 mm, 140 mm and 200 mm, you can mix and match to create a much larger project. The files are available for download from Thingiverse for your making pleasure.

We think this can be a great basic structure for someone looking at custom wall mounted projects. The lamp mount can be easily supplemented by a Raspberry Pi and Camera holder if you feel like live streaming your bench. Alternatively, it may be customized to become a motion detecting lamp just for fun. We hope to see some good use come of it in the future.

Talking To A Lamp

July 22, 2017 by Inderpreet Singh 10 Comments

Barking commands at furniture seems a bit odd but with voice controlled home automation platforms becoming the norm, you may be spending more time talking to your light fixtures than your kids. In one such project, [Becky Stern] used an Alexa Dot and an ESP8266 respond to voice commands.

The design uses the Alexa Dot to interpret voice commands such as ‘Alexa turn the light ON’. The ESP8266 with a relay feather wing is used to switch the actual lamp ON and OFF. The glue between the two is the fauxmoESP library that allows the ESP8266 to receive commands from the Alexa API.

The best part of the project is the lamp itself which has a wooden base and is perfect for such experiments. [Becky Stern] does a wonderful job at carving out enough space and filling it with the electronics. The additional sanding and wood staining make the project more impressive and worthy of a living room. The idea could be easily extended to other own household items. Check out the video of the project below and for more inspiration, take a look at Theia IoT Light-Switch. Continue reading “Talking To A Lamp” →