lighthouse project

[abnormal]

Another fun project raps up....
This design is for an octagon lamp for simulating a lighthouse 6 second round trip flash. The lighthouse stands about 6 feet tall, an outline of the lamp head is shound on the cardboard of one of the pix.

I am really liking the Atmel Tiny controllers, very cool and a true RISC design (no funky divide by 4 microchip T state stuff, also, no moving everything through the w register)
This was developed with studio 4 and an STK500 board.

The Kingbright XPOWER LEDs now available in white do a nice job, i stacked them for more output and to simulate an old arc lamp. http://www.us.kingbright.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=LED&category%5Fname=XPower&product%5Fid=AA1011RWC9

I also added a string of LED's to function as the top light glow and light the windows of the lighthouse. This was donated and will be on display at a maritime museum so long lamp life was a primary factor.

I'll add more pix of the final lighthouse shortly.

Here are the guts of the light.....







-Tom

[justDIY]

nice work with the PCBs ... quartering them like that, awesome simple and leaves a lot of copper!

[Rob]

Excellent! Outstanding way to make SMD construction an advantage.

[justDIY]

tap tap tap ... when do we get to see a quick video of this monster in operation!

ps, I moved it to the project showcase!

[abnormal]

WOW, high degree of clairvoyance this evening… I was just about to post.

New pics of it I took tonight (it’s almost complete). My new Canon 350D Rebel XT doesn’t have video capture, so stills it is (fun trying to time the light and shutter). I only built the flashing light and window lights for this.

Here we go...

A peak down the light head (behind the scenes), none of this is visable when the top is on.

Behind the scenes #2, looking down the tower and the support holding the LED window lights.

A nice little deck to kick back on in the summer!

The whale enjoys it also...

All business, the half circular stacked lexan rod does a nice job as a pseudo fresnel lens.

Lighted window shot

Everything works!


Thanks for looking!

[Rob]

Sweet! Got a shot of the homebrew Fresnel without the lights on?

[abnormal]

This shows a little more detail. I may have a better shot, but on another PC.

[justDIY]

hey that works great and probably didn't take too long to put together?

how did you decide on 1/2" stock vs 1/4" or some other size?

I've been thinking about retrofitting a post light with 4w amber luxeons and that lens idea looks like really slick way of diffusing the light.

[abnormal]

hey that works great and probably didn't take too long to put together?

Ya, it looks ok, better than just LED's thru glass. Bend up some sheet stock to form a U shape to hold the rod. Assemble and solder the seams. This was off the shelf rod at a plastics house. Note: the PCB clad was painted white also, LED’s are on only 1/16th the time so dissipation is nil.

how did you decide on 1/2" stock vs 1/4" or some other size?

The 1/2" seemed to match the LED optically, scaled best for appearance and easier to work with for the U channel (less pieces).

I've been thinking about retrofitting a post light with 4w amber luxeons and that lens idea looks like really slick way of diffusing the light.

It should work out well (depending on the LED viewing angle) try some different dimensioned small test pieces to find the proper focal length and get the look you want. Post some pics if you make it.

[abnormal]

This shows a little more detail of the lens

[Rob]

Sweet, just what I wanted to see. Nice job once again.