Eye scanner contest $50 or less

[groupleaderzeta]

Hello everyone,
I have ordered the parts for the scanner project. According to my calculations it may be the 2nd of dec. before I get them. I will try to get it done by the 5th, but I may not.
Goldcylon, Can you extend the deadline to 10th??

thanks,
groupleaderzeta

[SiR-ROUND]

OK this might be even cheating a bit, but I am not really sure because I have no idea the cost of the parts are, but here is a little helping hand and a little tweaking out of the system.

http://todbot.com/blog/2008/06/17/get-o ... nkm-cylon/

That one uses an Ardino board. Costly to use programmable microcontroller boards.

I've been hacking away at a circuit, but having one with 32 leds and nice trailing was too hard for me. Might try again.

But, I can try to simulate the 30 leds circuit with Circuit Wizard!!!

Okay, just spend the eve on making it up in Circuit Wizard. It does something, but it's not right. Bit late now, so I could have made a mistake, or something's wrong with the design. The first I hope. Will try to triple check soon.

From what I do see, is that the LED fading seems to work! Great job! Couldn't get the timer to run as well, but that happened to me before. Replaced it with a generator for the sim.

[groupleaderzeta]

Hello everyone,

SiR-ROUND, I have built this system before but it had only 25 LEDs, it does work. the only questionable part in this circuit is in the left hand side 4017, and pin 12. what it supposed to do is advance the lower 4017 after each cycle. I found my copy of mulisim, and may try to use it to test the circuit.

And I do believe using a micro-controller would be the best way to go, but my budget won't allow any experiments yet, maybe next year.

groupleaderzeta

[SiR-ROUND]

Hey,

The counters do seem to work. But somehow the matrix is not working correctly.
Might have to connect a logic analyzer, cuz it's hard to see what happens, or is not happening.

[Cylon-Knight]

WOW groupleaderzeta and SIR-ROUND this is rockin - keep it up! GREAT WORK

[SiR-ROUND]

Mkay. Watched those outputs closely.

The first thing I noticed:

Output 0 on the second 4017 doesn't stay on in the first cycle, what explains the first set of LEDS not lighting up, as they don't get grounded. But the real problem is output 10, which seems to switch before the cycle ends. When the thing reaches output 5, 10 gives another pulse??? Ehmmmmm. Well it's a divided by ten. Output 10 isn't any good I think, as it's a Divided by 10 counter. Output 9 should be used to feed the second 4017. Just rambling on now... It's been a while since I dove into electronics.

[Cylon-Knight]

Oh dear... we've been poked in the Cylon eye by electricity... yeeeeeOuch! Good work on the troubleshooting SIR-ROUND. Keep on it!

[gremlin]

ok i am cheating, but hay that is what gremlins do ... this might help those that are trying... read this thread it gives parts, and pics for a 24 led scanner

http://www.zealot.com/forum/showthread. ... lon+helmet

[groupleaderzeta]

Hello everyone,

SiR-ROUND, on your schematic you have the left side 4017 labeled as U1.

Lets try a experiment...

Remove the last row of LEDs (L6, L12, L18, L24, L30), also remove the diode and transistor.

reconnect the following pins..

D1 to pin 3
D2 to pin 2
D3 to pin 6
D4 to pin 4
D5 to pin 5
D6 to pin 7
D7 to pin 1
D8 to pin 10

then connect pin 9 to pin 14 of the other 4017 (U2), and remove the 3.3k resister.
I still think its the carry out (pin 12), thats causing the problem

groupleaderzeta

[Cylon-Knight]

ok i am cheating, but hay that is what gremlins do ... this might help those that are trying... read this thread it gives parts, and pics for a 24 led scanner

http://www.zealot.com/forum/showthread. ... lon+helmet

Cool, I'll read over that link. Hope to learn some info.

A "real" cylon eye is 32 lights... that's the goal, 28 and 30 are "okay" but the Holy Grail will always be 32

[GoldCylon]

Since this project has all of a sudden taken up a major interest in the past few weeks I will let the contest go 2 more weeks past the posted end date. It will give those a tad bit more breathing room. So enjoy the extra days, and lets see what we have going here at the end of that time frame. Thanks everyone for making this happen it will give a great resource to help the fellow Cylon members have a low budget eye scanner.

[SiR-ROUND]

How nice.

Well, I just want to help out. I tried this by myself and gave up eventually.

In the end, I also hope this will turn out great for our community!!!



EDIT:

Well, it was late, and I'm an @$$. I somehow managed to confuse pinouts and outputs on the U1. Got that sorted.

It still didn't work. I temporarily took the caps out (trailing) to get a better view on the leds lighting up. Still no go. But something did light up on the last row of leds.

And then I found another fine mistake. 3 Out of 5 resistors on the transistors for U2, where copied wrong, 47k instead of 330. Fixed that and presto! So, my hat off to you Zeta! I do see some weird glitches, skipping a led sometimes, but I'm not that sure this sim is correct. Will try to see if it's consistent. That would say something. OW, wait, now I'm gonna check with the caps back in place! Stay tuned!

EDIT: Aha! The caps cause problems. Not sure if it's due to my timings, or that the value is wrong? I'll xperiment some moar.

EDIT: Changed the trailing caps to 1uF. Now it seems to work. Cranked up the clock up to 40Hz and it looked good, but still some glitches. I'd like to get that 555 to oscillate as well.

EDIT: Got the 555 working. Checked some connections between the U1 and U2. Needed some work, but when I got all 1:1 with the schematic, the thing did not budge anymore. The connection to pin 15 (reset) needs to be removed I think. When I do so, it works. Or connect it to ground, like stated in the upper right connections to the 4017. What is the cap/resistor connected to U1 15 and U2 14 supposed to do?

[groupleaderzeta]

Hello everyone,

I have a new circuit with 32 LEDs, but it does the same thing, I get it to work great going 1 way, not back and forth, I am still working it out. Also to let everyone know, the next project will be a scanner made with a micro controller. And will probably be started the first of the year if not sooner.

Features I want to include are..
1) Eye sweep (32 LEDs, adjustable speed, fading trail)
2) Eye sound
3) 3 Modes..
A) basic eye sweep
B) Target eye ( eye slows, and stops in center)
C) Death eye (slows to ether side, and stops, then fades out

groupleaderzeta

[Cylon-Knight]

Hello everyone,

I have a new circuit with 32 LEDs, but it does the same thing, I get it to work great going 1 way, not back and forth, I am still working it out. Also to let everyone know, the next project will be a scanner made with a micro controller. And will probably be started the first of the year if not sooner.

Features I want to include are..
1) Eye sweep (32 LEDs, adjustable speed, fading trail)
2) Eye sound
3) 3 Modes..
A) basic eye sweep
B) Target eye ( eye slows, and stops in center)
C) Death eye (slows to ether side, and stops, then fades out

groupleaderzeta

My Hero!

Can't wait to see more on the 32 light version - WOW!

[groupleaderzeta]

Hello everyone,

SIR-ROUND Wrote...
The connection to pin 15 (reset) needs to be removed I think. When I do so, it works. Or connect it to ground, like stated in the upper right connections to the 4017. What is the cap/resistor connected to U1 15 and U2 14 supposed to do?

If I understand correctly, they are basicly filters. The cap is for back emf noise, and the resister is to smooth the twitching because of the freq.

EDIT: Changed the trailing caps to 1uF. Now it seems to work. Cranked up the clock up to 40Hz and it looked good, but still some glitches. I'd like to get that 555 to oscillate as well.

I found that the freq is to short for the caps to charge correctly

Please note.. I designed the circuit from theory and data sheets. I knew it would need some tweaking. Thanks and big bow to SIR-ROUND.

groupleaderzeta