[[email protected]]

I want to build a large version of one of these chinese gizmos for the
top of my building.
http://chuanz.en.alibaba.com/produc...ng_Ball_with_Free_of_Hand_Switch/showimg.html

Help? Not fancier, just bigger.

Thanks in advance.

 

[John Fields]

I want to build a large version of one of these chinese gizmos for the
top of my building.
http://chuanz.en.alibaba.com/produc...ng_Ball_with_Free_of_Hand_Switch/showimg.html

Help? Not fancier, just bigger.

 

[Don Bowey]

Cool idea. Mine would need pre-programmed lines:

541 K St
Keg is tapped
Party Time
Bring snacks

Don

 

[[email protected]]

well, I want one, or maybe two for the top of a building parapet. I
want the base to sit on top of the wall. I need to measure it but I
think the wall is 9 inches wide. I think the motor base would have to
fit in a 9" X 9" up to 12" box , I think the ball could be 18" in
diameter. I've just started looking at leds and for some kind of globe
thing or someone to vacuum form it. I don't need anything fancy like
signs or animation, just want a big toy.

 

[[email protected]]

Cool idea. Mine would need pre-programmed lines:

541 K St
Keg is tapped
Party Time
Bring snacks

Don

what kind of beer?

I looked at a couple of old posts. They had similar ideas but they were
all lights on flat bars and focused on signs such as you sugessted and
animations. I want something dumber. I'm just interested in the light
patterns and colors and the globe idea.

 

[[email protected]]

I took one apart. It has two curved arms, a shorter one for the
southern hemisphere and longer one for the northern hemisphere. There
are 5 leds, red, blue, green, white, yellow on each arm 180 degrees
across from each other. I would, of course use some big leds. Big, some
description- ha - shows I'm not an engineer but larger so they'd be in
scale with the size. I think 18" in diameter is what I'm looking for.
The circuit is printed on the arms and lead to a mystery chip, The arms
are connected to a tube connected to a motor shaft. I don't know
enough about electronics to figure this out but I feel pretty sure I
could cookbook it if someone gave me the directions.

 

[Rich Grise]

what kind of beer?

I looked at a couple of old posts. They had similar ideas but they were
all lights on flat bars and focused on signs such as you sugessted and
animations. I want something dumber. I'm just interested in the light
patterns and colors and the globe idea.

If all you want is constant-on LEDs, then the electronics are trivial.
The hard part will be the mechanical part. Do you plan to use slip rings,
or spinning batteries? Or something exotic, like inductive coupling,
or turn your spinner into a generator armature with a few supermagnets?

But once you get a transparent 18" globe, and build some kind of spinner
with LEDs on it, there's not much else to it.

Now let the holy war - "Slip rings!" "Inductive coupling!" - begin! ;-P

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[martin griffith]

On 5 Jul 2006 13:42:24 -0700, in sci.electronics.design

I want to build a large version of one of these chinese gizmos for the
top of my building.
http://chuanz.en.alibaba.com/produc...ng_Ball_with_Free_of_Hand_Switch/showimg.html

Help? Not fancier, just bigger.

Thanks in advance.

I saw a diy one recently, that did not use sliprings, but soldered 3
(carefully) wires to the commutator of a dc motor, and used a 3 phase
rectifier to get power to the rotation doobree. Sorry, lost the url, I
cleaned out my cache, just before seeing your message

Probably Digg/boingboing or one of the Howto sites


martin

 

[[email protected]]

well I want a pattern. not just lights on. This toy has 68 patterns.
The number of patterns doesn't matter. I just want some patterns that
change randomly.

 

[[email protected]]

On 5 Jul 2006 13:42:24 -0700, in sci.electronics.design

I saw a diy one recently, that did not use sliprings, but soldered 3
(carefully) wires to the commutator of a dc motor, and used a 3 phase
rectifier to get power to the rotation doobree. Sorry, lost the url, I
cleaned out my cache, just before seeing your message

Probably Digg/boingboing or one of the Howto sites

well here's one version.

http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/05/07/spinning-led-globe/


and here's another
http://www3.sympatico.ca/surfin.dude/creative/clocks/propclk/blick.html

here's something for our party boy
http://www.epartyunlimited.com/skyliner.html

I found this commercial ball
http://www.audiovisualizers.com/library/store/iball/iball.htm

here's a cadillac version
http://www.eyeball.co.nz/iball+_specs.htm

and for the really ambitious - 3D TV.
http://mdcnudp.tmspublisher.com/ima...tion Forum/UICCF Abstract/Project Summary.doc

For $700 it might be worth it for me to just buy this iball+ rather
than make my own.