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Neon Lamp Project: Continued
Continuing the Neon Lamp Project that I started a few months ago, I’ve put some more thought into it. I’ve decided to merge the Neon Lamp project with my Chronulator project. I’m planning to sell Chronulators constructed in vintage wood boxes with antique panel meters at SteamCon III in October this year and need to actually finalize my designs somewhat.
The stock Chronulator kit doesn’t include any output for the seconds. I want a seconds indicator, so I first designed a circuit which would alternately drive the neon flash tubes in a flip-flopping manner from a low voltage control source:
By using a pair of solid-state relays, one normally open and one normally closed, I can alternate between two 0A3 neon bulbs using a single control signal. The Chronulator doesn’t output a timing pulse of any kind, but it’s open source so I could change the code to make one. I’m taking over an unused PWM output and will be driving it either 100% full-on, or 0% full-off. Defining the PWM pin and setting a variable for it:
#define METER_S OCR0A
ISR(TIMER2_OVF_vect) {
METER_M = meter_m_value;
METER_H = meter_h_value;
METER_S = flipflop;
tick_tick();
update_power_mode();
debounce_buttons();
if( sleepModeCausesSpuriousTimer2Interrupts() ) {
waitForTimer2CycleToEnd();
}
}
Start full-on, and switch between on and off each call:
static unsigned char flipflop = 255;
void flip_second_indicator() {
flipflop ^= 255;
}
and finally, in the code segment that keeps track of the seconds, a call to the actual flip-flop code:
void tick_second() {
if( second < (secondsPerMinute - 1) ) {
second++;
} else {
second = 0;
tick_minute();
}
flip_second_indicator();
}
Now, the Chronulator pushes its unused pin high and low. The Atmega168 chip powering the Chronulator can push 3V @ 20mA, which is just barely enough to actuate the control relays. I may need a small voltage amplifier of some kind to raise the 3V control signal up to a 5V level as 3V solid-state relays are a bit more expensive.
Next steps: build the Chronulator on a proto-board, then see about adding the neons to it. I also might need to add a tiny infrared emitter inside any of the boxes I build, as the neon tubes are subject to the photoionization effect and might not strike reliably in darkness if they’re mounted low in an enclosure. I’ll work out those details during prototyping.
Meter Clock Roundup
Meter clocks are interesting works of geeky art that display the time using analog panel meters driven by a microcontroller. They can be strikingly artistic – and are getting to be very popular. There are a lot of homebrew designs that use a microcontroller and some small digital-analog converters to produce a signal for a variety of meter types. I’m working on one myself, but in the mean time, there are a lot of other ideas out there!
A gentleman named Andy has made this beautiful Geeky Clock that made it all the way to Hack a Day:
Andy has built his clock using servo motors to position the needles instead of meter movements, effectively making his meters from the ground up. I could see some advantages to this approach (more accurate control), but just driving an appropriate meter directly is a bit less work.
Another very interesting example of a meter clock comes from Len Bayles at ChronWorks, sellers of interesting clock merchandise including scopes and nixie tubes in addition to meters. He uses three 1 mA scale meters in a cluster and some DACs to drive this unusual set of gauges for hours, minutes and seconds. The full write-up including source files and parts lists is available over at his dedicated site for the meter clock, Meterclock.com.
These gauges draw more power (1 mA full scale) than the microcontroller or DAC alone could drive, so they are powered by a small amplifier to make sure they can move accurately.
There’s also the classic meter clock featured on Embedds.com using some seriously powerful meters – 50 mA full scale. In contrast, the meters I’m working on to build my small meter clock are 50-150 μA, about a thousand times more sensitive. These are mounted on a panel and it looks like a piece of test equipment or a rack mounted indicator display – interesting and industrial.
Another entry from Hack a Day shows off this elegant and incredibly wide arc meter “Clock for Geeks“, using a single face with a large area to allow it to display the time using a single servo-driven movement. A little big for my tastes, but very interesting!
from Chrass Landing comes the Anachronistic Chronometer. This one features some very stylish antique meters in the mA full scale range, one originally an ammeter and the others volt meters that can be driven the same way. The only unfortunate thing about it is he ruined an early 1920s vacuum tube radio to build this one:
“Meanwhile, I was checking Ebay for something steampunk-ish to put my clock into. Eventually I got the idea of using an antique radio. Not exactly steampunk, but the idea of an anachronistic “clock radio” seemed pretty funny to me. I settled on a home made 1920’s radio.” I think that radio was a kit radio from the 1920s, probably not an entirely homebrew one. But, whatever it was, he had the right idea with the meter placement. There were originally already viewing holes behind where those meters were mounted to let you look in at the tubes and see how brightly they glowed (and adjust their power using the knobs right below where the meters are now.) If left intact, that radio probably would have been worth a couple hundred dollars as-found or considerably more working.
But it does make a pretty neat clock.
Finally, one of the first meter clocks I discovered was several years ago, the original Chronulator. A kit you can piece together with μA-scale meters, I’m using it as the base of my clock project. Other people have made beautiful examples of Chronulators too, including this fine Steampunk Chronulator example made by a French designer:
As well as other craziness made from the same kit:
I wonder how long the Bombulator was left sitting by that planter. It looks like it could really attract some attention.
Neon Lamp Project [Initial Thoughts]
I was inspired by the BNC Adapter Lamp, a beautiful creation made from bench parts that is vaguely reminiscent of steampunk styling.
Simple, yet incredibly novel and artistic. It inspired me to try something similar, except perhaps a little more steampunk and using some of my other hobby, vacuum tube gear. I know voltage regulator tubes glow depending on their gas content and voltage rating, and came across this Voltage Regulator Night Light which uses an incredibly simple circuit to light an 0A3 (VR75) voltage regulator from a line source.
My current plan is to combine these two projects. I envision a project box a bit larger than the Night Light one, with the regulator tube mounted in the center and three BNC connectors coming up out of it spaced 120° around the tube. I could possibly use a circular container for this, as well. Attached to each of those, run NE-2A neon lamps inside of similar diffuser rods.
After studying the datasheets for these devices, I’ve come up with this schematic:
Each lamp draws 0.7mA of current at 105-125V; a 150K current limiting resistor to ensure there is no damage. The regulator tube can provide 5-40mA of current, so a we’ll need a minimum of 9 lamps to be on the safe side or the tube could stop conducting or become damaged, either way not the desired outcome.
Next steps: order parts and see what happens. I have one project on my bench right now, but after that, I think this is the next one.
Last Exile – Steampunk Anime
Update 1: I’m working on getting the Greek script translated where possible. Progress here.
I just finished watching Last Exile, a 2003 Steampunk anime series set in an alternate universe combining the normal varieties of steam-powered machina with inspiration from the Golden Age of Aviation. The series is visually stunning with beautiful clockworks and intricate attention to detail; the characters are well-rounded and multidimensional and the episodes are only 24 minutes long so it was very easy to watch one or two, or have it playing in the background, and not really have to spend a lot of time on.
I’ve never really been interested in anime before, having only watched a few examples of the genre while in college at the urging of my roommate at the time. I’m finding, however, that I may have dismissed it too readily. I started out watching a fan-subtitled Japanese version, but the text translations were so poor I wasn’t accurately able to follow the story so on the third episode, I switched to watching the American version which happens to be available on Netflix. Super convenient!
Spoilers are no fun, so I won’t give away the ending or any of the central plot twists but I will go over the broad strokes a bit.
In a divided world, warring nations Anatoray and Disith engage in massive air battles using airships powered by “Claudia units”, technology provided by the secretive and all-powerful Guild who act as something of overseers. “Your planet can’t support so many of you!” their leader says. “If you were allowed to do anything you wanted, you’d breed like rabbits and then you’d go extinct! That’s why only myself and a privileged few are allowed the pleasures of life.”
Following this pattern, the people generally live in filth and fight over access to water. Climate change has cast the nation of Anatoray into a deep drought, while turning Disith into a frozen wasteland and the nations are at war over resources. Anatoray capital airships are the most compelling in the series, striking corrugated metal sides, many heavy guns, the large crests and the words “dikaios” (“righteous”) and “poleo” = (“trader”) in Greek. All of the text in the series appears in Greek, and there’s a lot of it. I was lucky to find the translation of the Greek on the air ship; there are other translations out there I have not been able to locate yet.
Large-scale airship battles are frequent throughout the series and are always visually impressive.
While not explained outright in the series, in the ephemera it was assumed that the Disith would be invading Anatoray from the Grand Stream above; this is why the guns on Disith warships were primarily on the bottom, with Anatoray warships guns being primarily on top with the expectation of firing upwards at incoming attackers. This configuration made ship-to-ship combat in the same plane somewhat difficult, though. There were also several special ships:
Most personal transportation is in the form of a “vanship”, an airplane-like vehicle that is very quick and maneuverable. Styled with the wide grills and corrugated siding common to 1920s aviation:
I highly recommend the series. It’s not without a few things I felt could have been improved upon, however.
Pros:
Cons:
Overall, I’d say I give the series a 7.5/10. Definitely worth watching, if you like steampunk stuff and don’t mind anime.
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