recently ive made a few posts asking some beginner questions. well, here is a summary of my project from start to now:
it started out with me seeing this:
instantly i wanted to make one. seems like an impressive object to have sitting on my desk or on the TV. and chicks dig water droplets, right? all that was needed was a pump, and strobing LEDs. i read a post about how a 555 timer could be used rather than a pic programming thingy to strobe the LEDs, so that was a plus. besides, id always been interested in electronics (kind of my other half, being a programmer) and i have a lot of free time recently.
so, i went to the only place i know of to buy electronics stuff: radio shack. this store is the biggest ripoff. it costs more than a dollar for a transistor (makes you wonder if a cpu would be hundreds of millions of dollars), and everytime ive been in there they are plugging some stupid gadget to ignorant customers. but whatever.
so far ive purchased the following:
a breadboard a jumper kit assorted resistors assorted capacitors assorted LEDs assorted pots .1uF caps
2 TIP31 transistors 2 TIP42 transistors 5 555 timers (i thought i shorted a bunch out, but i was just stupid)so radioshack certainly isn't complaining.
so off i went trying to make a 555 timer strobe a single LED. a lot of reading, experimenting, etc etc. and still, i mixed up the positive and negative rail causing me to believe all my 555 timers were somehow broken.
so, finally i got the 555 working, and figured out to light up 20 LEDs ill need more than 200ma, so i got transistors. easy enough.
then the pump and LED arrived and i figured Id have this thing done in no time. i soldered the LEDs to wire duct taped onto dow rods. that worked beautifully and is probably my crown achievement of this project.
now, the pump. i hate this pump. here it is, the only battery powered pump i could find:
this pump is complete shit. it pumps too much, and is noisy and shakey. i sawed off the top and soldered leads to the power things, and figured all i need to do now is run a pot to it to control the flow, and im done!
well, apparantely dc motors are real assholes to 555 timers using the same power supply. everyone who was involved with my last post, thank you so much for your time and patience. i finally got it to work. the
1000uf caps and diodes between each circuit are what did it. the psuedo pulse width modulated circuit worked great too, though the pump was just a piece of shit. (ive since ordered a submersible dc pump, which should be much better).i couldn't manage to get a steady rate of drops to come out of the nozzle, basically because the pump is just a dc motor on the top, and a long tube with a metal rod running through it, the end of which has a little plastic impeller on it. so the water gets sucked up the tube and pours out the top quite unpredictably.
anyway, everything was set, so it was time to test it. the leds worked great, and strobed at the same frequency no matter what the status of the pump was. so i powered on the pump and fooled with it to get some decent drippage. then i squeezed some precious hiliter juice in to the water (with my bare, now orange hands) and watch the water slowly grow to a healthy glowing orange. the droplets werent exactly frozen, but rather dancing around randomly since the pump sucked ass.
i use past tense on the pump for this reason: i was adjusting the flow rate of the pump, and decided to adjust the strobe speed. i only have micro pots right now, and i use a screwdriver to adjust them. well for the first time ever in my experience (and ive tested this thing a million times) the pot stuck to the screwdriver and came out of the breadboard. unfortunately, this caused the 555 to always be on. this in turned caused the shitty 3v pump to operate at 6v. at this voltage it wasnt so shitty, as it pumped orange hiliter dyed water all over my bathroom and self. i quickly turned off the circuit, turned on the lights, and assessed the damage.
everything was stained, and still is. ill need to repaint, or expect not to receive my deposit back. so i did what was necessary to the pump, which couldn't be used for this project. i smashed the shit out of it. it felt good.
so, now i have a bunch of electronics stuff, an array of LEDs duct taped to an orange plastic box, a dyed bathroom, and a feeling of failure (though soon to be success when a newer, better pump arrives). im very close to finishing this, i just need a steady source of water drippage. i cant wait.
so, thats my story. thank you all for your help with this. questions, comments, let me know.
-sam