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Lighting Errol's wings
10 years ago
Yup, Errol had lights before, but now...
Previously I wrote about using LED strips and I finally had a chance to try it. I used those Neopixel ones at 140+ LEDs per metre. (That's >700 LEDs for Errol's wings) I glued them along the side of plexiglass wing ribs and ground the other edge to a bevel so the light gets prismed off the edge. The effect is startling- the colours just transition along the entire wing rib and can strobe to a blinding level. Definitely something to try... (but, yeah, these wings are a little sturdier than my previous ones and I accidentally clobber someone every so often- embarrassing)
Anyway. The tech; that's something else. If any of you are going to try this, maybe my little journal entry here will help.
Of course, I immediately ran out of memory on the computer board I used (that Arduino YUN I have for the ESP section). It's fine without the 'Bridge' library, but I wanted that for the webserver. So, I'm still trying to come up with a way to rewrite that "Adafruit' library most people use for these strips (maybe you don't need 3 bytes of RAM per pixel). For now, the LEDs are limited to 260 per wing.
Also, these lights can use up to 3 amperes per wing so I quickly ran out of power. The voltage drop from the battery through the connectors and along the retractable cables to the wings was over 3 volts sometimes- enough so my batteries (which are 7 volts for the servos) didn't supply a high enough voltage. The computer would crash and the light show (though spectacular) wasn't what I planned.
So now I use a 12 volt battery and each part has a separate regulator to supply the 5 volts everything needs. (And these are 10 amp regulators) A pair of 3300 AH LiPOs seem to be doing the job.
One great thing of the Arduino are some nice demo programs for sound processing. Together with a microphone kit from Adafruit, my previous efforts at working with sound detection are terrible in comparison. WOW, this thing works well! I've fooled with the software a bit to make different display modes from spectrum to scrolling to strobe...
And now with that YUN board, it serves up a webpage with REST calls to the Arduino .ino sketch- you can do almost anything with the LEDs. How cool is that? 'Course, I'm still learning how to do this stuff too...
Previously I wrote about using LED strips and I finally had a chance to try it. I used those Neopixel ones at 140+ LEDs per metre. (That's >700 LEDs for Errol's wings) I glued them along the side of plexiglass wing ribs and ground the other edge to a bevel so the light gets prismed off the edge. The effect is startling- the colours just transition along the entire wing rib and can strobe to a blinding level. Definitely something to try... (but, yeah, these wings are a little sturdier than my previous ones and I accidentally clobber someone every so often- embarrassing)
Anyway. The tech; that's something else. If any of you are going to try this, maybe my little journal entry here will help.
Of course, I immediately ran out of memory on the computer board I used (that Arduino YUN I have for the ESP section). It's fine without the 'Bridge' library, but I wanted that for the webserver. So, I'm still trying to come up with a way to rewrite that "Adafruit' library most people use for these strips (maybe you don't need 3 bytes of RAM per pixel). For now, the LEDs are limited to 260 per wing.
Also, these lights can use up to 3 amperes per wing so I quickly ran out of power. The voltage drop from the battery through the connectors and along the retractable cables to the wings was over 3 volts sometimes- enough so my batteries (which are 7 volts for the servos) didn't supply a high enough voltage. The computer would crash and the light show (though spectacular) wasn't what I planned.
So now I use a 12 volt battery and each part has a separate regulator to supply the 5 volts everything needs. (And these are 10 amp regulators) A pair of 3300 AH LiPOs seem to be doing the job.
One great thing of the Arduino are some nice demo programs for sound processing. Together with a microphone kit from Adafruit, my previous efforts at working with sound detection are terrible in comparison. WOW, this thing works well! I've fooled with the software a bit to make different display modes from spectrum to scrolling to strobe...
And now with that YUN board, it serves up a webpage with REST calls to the Arduino .ino sketch- you can do almost anything with the LEDs. How cool is that? 'Course, I'm still learning how to do this stuff too...
I'm simply amazed at how much power these things use up when stretched out to the scale of wings. Going with EL wire for my feathers I'll be needing something like four inverters with 8xAA each. With a runtime of 15-20 hours each I'm going to chew through so many batteries! Would go for lipo too but while I have lots of experience playing with them at work I don't have any gear at home and I don't think the airlines would appreciate it, heh.
Can you tell apart different sound types in the software? Or different sound input channels? Maybe if you had a small microphone in the mouth you could make your wings all go a certain colour when it hears you say something, just for that immediate "wow" effect in conversations.
Ooooo, can't wait to see your wings all lit up! Hopefully there'll be a legal way to fly LiFe batteries (without pretending they're laptop backups) soon... meanwhile, one of the benefits of me driving to Furnal :)
I can do a limited amount of DSP with the YUN but it's pretty maxed out just running the server and lights. But your ideas are great! I'll try a second mic. Years back I played with a 'Voice Extreme' IDE- basically it was able to detect a limited # of words like yes, no and then IO depending on how you programmed it. I wonder... 'course that brings Errol's computer count up to 6 :O
But I better finish Errol's flame first... next Journal.
I can't believe you're driving clear across to Toronto! That's quite the road trip! How many days of driving are you planning? I'm going to be making a road trip across too in May to Fureh (and work). The low gas prices are feeling really good now!
Flame? Are you actually building a flamethrower into errol?? I gotta hear this - looking forward to that journal entry!
Yeah, I gotta be crazy (again) to drive 3.8k but Keianza will help out there and Tessa's cold nose will make sure I'm awake. 3 days via the US and right after Vancoufur to boot. But it's not a bad trip, and on the way back I won't be in a hurry.
I've always said, making real fire is actually quite easy! The trick is to simulate fire... and that is definitely not easy. Just as a prelim, I'm trying to use one of those 'flame silks' and a set of fans with yellow lighting. But it involves moving the tongue and somehow extending the silk without it getting hung up. Been quite a challenge!!
That sounds really intense! I've never taken the US route, it seems so much more scenic. Furnal has a slow start so you'll get to sleep in on Friday at least! I'm pondering volunteering on Thursday as well but I've only got a hotel room from Friday.
Yeah, why not just stick with a flamethrower - you'd only be able to do it outside, and have to fireproof the suit, but those are appropriately dragon-like!
Using material for a sustained "fire breath" does sound like a complex challenge. I've been tossing the idea around in my head for an hour and I'm still not sure how to go about it in a reusable way, I wonder if it'd be easier to do it fireball style without the fan, and have quick spring-loaded "shots"... but well, if anyone can figure this out it'd be you!