insomniac's dream circuit

Why? Are you in Scandenavia?

f*ck dude, i have the same problem since i gave up smoking cigarretes. The best i can do is sleep on the couch with 90mins clocked up on the TV sleep timer. It works, but i usually need to do it a second time around 2pm when i awaken again.

We had a similar question posted here some seven or eight years ago, when the OP wanted to slowly decrease the current through a magnet in a magnetic refrigerator sustainig a temperature of about 0.1K (that is, a tenth of a degree Kelvin above absolute zero).

The neatest answer turns out to be a long - 26 bit - digital counter clocked by a 32768Hz watch crystal. This can be realised in a PIC microcontroller or a sufficiently (not very) large programmable logic device.

You then have to translate the changing digital outputs of the counter into signals that can influence the brightness of your lamp. Phase control of a triac is certainly one way of doing it - this can push a lot of high frequency hash into your mains voltage, if you aren't very careful about filtering at the mains input, and the regulatory authorities have imposed rather stringent demands in recent years, which is probably why you can't buy your triac circuit any more.

Straightforward pulse-width modulation of the output from a switch-mode power supply would probably be an easier way to go. You'd want to make successive pulses alternate in polarity to keep the lamp happy, and you'd want to filter the higher frequency switching transients out of the current going to your lamp to prevent them from messing up your raido reception (and - more important - that of your neighbours).

This would be easier - and safer - if you controlled the output of a

12V tungsten halogen lamp. These are widely available - my supermarket sells replacement bulbs.

The current to light relationship for these bulbs (nor any other) isn't remotely linear - the filament resistance rises by a factor of around four as it heats up from cold, the power dissipated in the filament is proportional to the square of the current (at constant temperature) and the amount of visible light produced varies as something like the fourth power of the filament temperature (IIRR) - so a simple linear ramp won't do what you want.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Why would the lamp want alternating polarity?

Maybe a feedback loop with a photocell would be called for.

-- John

...and then the pricks run those quit smoking adverts to remind you that you'd really like a cig - as the jingle goes "nicorette nicorette you need another cigarette.."

It's a win win situation for the quit smoking aids industry.

smoke free 6 months and counting...........

A tungsten-halogen lamp depends on recycling evaporated tungsten by having it captured as a volatile tungsten halide in the atmosphere around the filament, which decomposes back to tungsten and free halogen when the molecule hits the filament.

The atmosphere in the vicitiny of the filament is hot enough to ionise the tungsten halide by knocking off one or more of the halogen atoms, and any persistent DC field along the filament is going to shift the positively charged ions towards the negative end of the filament, leading to uneven redeposition of the tungsten and rearly failure of the filament.

That's my theory, anyway.

Seems like a total overkill.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Google for (triac dimmer circuit fade)

Good for you. Keep up the good work! :)

-- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell Central Florida

I quit cold-turkey 13 years ago, after smoking for 35 years ;-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Good for you too. Now, if someone could just put Rich on the right track, for his own good. :(

Just one question? How did you keep cold turkey lit? ;-)

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Cold-turkey for me about 25 years ago. But it was about my 4th attempt. I finally realized that quitting meant never doing it again.

Yep. My quitting was actually my second "attempt"... in the mid '80's I quit for a year to test if there was any correlation between my smoking and my sinus congestion... there wasn't, so I resumed ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Not sure where you can get one, but this sort of device is sold for kids rooms - ie the kids go to sleep with the light on and by the time they are asleep the light is off - have you googled?

David

" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote:

I only had 15 years up my sleeve, maybe 20 (but I am younger than you lot) but I had about 10 attempts. Like xray says, it means I can never have 1 ciggie ever again, and that includes cigars..... Sigh....

I think I don't have an addictive personality. I can manage a cigar once or twice a year without any lingering cravings.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Yeah, me too. But I don't really like cigars, so it doesn't happen often. By a year or two after quitting, I never even thought about smoking again. I gather some people still get cravings years later.

Actually, I wasn't completely honest about cold turkey. I kept one cig in my pocket for a while. If I really got a craving, I would take it out and smoke just one or two drags to get the edge off. Then I'd put it out and back in my pocket. Each re-lighting got progressively more unappealing. I think I got quit inside of one cig.

I think quitting now would be easier than it was in the early 80's. Back then, many public places were filled with smokers and smoke. Now most public places are smoke-free.

I am 12 months in and still crave for a ciggie.

Actually, it seems that there's a "slow dimmer" question every few months.

google is your friend.

Good Luck! Rich