The Lights Page.

Ok It's been a long time since I posted anything about the Lighthouse project but here we go. We have not stopped working on the project so have no fears.

This is the story of how we are building out giant FLASHLIGHT that can be placed next to (or possibly in )the lighthouse to simulate a cool lighthouse beacon.

Part 2 is how I modified my ipod Shuffle to add a computer interface.

Part 3 is assembly of the electronics and intro to writing the code.

Donated by:

Slow the Beacon RPM down to about 1 or 2 RPM. The Beacon uses a stepping motor to spin the mirror and deflect the light 360 degrees.

Click on the Youtube video to the right to see the Beacon running slowly. I won't say how I did it just yet but it's done. Feel free to email me with a guess!

We have Speakers, wires, remotes, battery, pipe for Beacon support, Beacons and other parts.

One last view.

Next grab the white board from the basement (don't erase the pinball high scores!!) and teach the scouts how to brainstorm a spec for a project. Austin and Matt worked with me on this part.

Delayed by a trip to Japan, work continues!

This is the old RadioShack 40 Watt 7-band Power Booster! I actually had two of these sitting around BUT the amp chips were blown. ebay does have everything including the replacement chips for this old relic! I ordered 4 chips for about $10..not bad.

Three of the blown devices (2 from one amp and one from the second) are shown in the picture to the left. Typically people reverse the power to the amp and then when the fuse blows, they put a bigger one in. The final result is that the smoke contained inside the chip gets let out. (Yes all chips have a smoke supply built inside. If you let it out, the chip won't work anymore) You can see where the smoke came out of this guy.

Time to have the scouts make a template for the speaker.

Ah the final result looks great!

It only took 1 work night to make the template but I bet they can make another one in 5 minutes..

Transfer the template hole to the speaker panel (did I mention we winged the box dimensions?)

This is the greatest tool of this century! Harbor Freight has it for a reasonable price. Thanks to Roland Keene for making me get one of these!

We moved the project down to my friends house. He has a real table saw! (my table saw used a horse on a treadmill) It's amazing how a good table saw makes a difference!

Here the the bottom of the box attached to the sides and speaker walls. It's taking shape!

Note the cut where the Plexiglas will slide in.

Ok now to make the inner walls of the speaker cavity and a way to mount the Amplifier.

My friend Pete picked up all this nice wood for free from the hardware store down in Keene NH. They put out scrap wood for people to take. Such a deal!

We used glue to keep the box sturdy! This is a test of the inside LED light. It's held in place with 4 Deckmate screws and running on battery power for now.

I mounted the lead-acid backup battery inside the box too! Seems to be plenty of room.

Test fit. Looks good.

Time to Prime! My assistant primed the entire box without priming himself.

Assistant #2 painted the entire assembly the next night.

Speakers mounted and making progress!

Power amp mounted using some brackets I made from old PC card slot filler plates.

Time to wire the speakers for a sound test.

The LED light is not attached after we ran a power wire to it so we can externally power it with 6 Volts. This light should stay powered for weeks with the big battery we have for it!

Next it's time to mount more of the innards

Maybe the drill is a bit big.

Well I wish my assistants could be here to work on this with me but they are off to Summer camp. So here is my first attempt at the schematic for the innards. I used Eagle (by Cadsoft) to draw the schematic. I took liberties to use symbols to represent some of my electronic hardware. Next up is the Ipod interface to the computer. (maybe after I do some wiring!)