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Cylon Eye - Larson Scanner from Adafuit

Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 1:31 pm
by RAM_Doubler
I haven't seen this solution posted yet, but I'll be using this in my current Centurion build.

Adafruit has complete instructions for a Larson Scanner project powered by their tiny Trinket or Gemma boards - instructions and parts list is here https://learn.adafruit.com/larson-scann ... s/overview.

My eye slot fits 17 LEDs, so that's what we built and programmed around.

A friend who's a lot who's a lot handier than me did the soldering, and added a pot so the speed of the scanner can be changed with a twist of a screwdriver.

He also modified their code to create a "comet tail." I've attached a zip file with a modified .ino file if anyone wants to take a look.

The LEDs are *very* bright, but that can be modified in the code. Planning to put a blackened lens made of milk jug plastic to darken and diffuse the light (you can see a mockup of how that will look in my profile pic).

Not the cheapest solution, but it won't break the bank :D

Here's the eye:

Re: Cylon Eye - Larson Scanner from Adafuit

Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 8:03 pm
by Cylon-Knight
(I updated your post to embed the video.)

Eye looks great!

Re: Cylon Eye - Larson Scanner from Adafuit

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 2:01 pm
by Jenne
Very cool, good work. Can also adjust the speed ?

Re: Cylon Eye - Larson Scanner from Adafuit

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 9:46 pm
by RAM_Doubler
Jenne wrote:Very cool, good work. Can also adjust the speed ?

If you follow the instructions on the Adafruit site, it'll tell you how to adjust the speed by modifying the program you load into the Gemma board.

However, we added a pot on top of the Gemma board to manually control the speed. Thought it would be easier to give it a twist with a screwdriver than reload the software any time we wanted to speed up or slow down the eye sweep.

Re: Cylon Eye - Larson Scanner from Adafuit

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2015 5:49 am
by Soda Can
That is a very tidy nice and slim line unit, how much is this one to build?

Re: Cylon Eye - Larson Scanner from Adafuit

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:24 pm
by RAM_Doubler
Soda Can wrote:That is a very tidy nice and slim line unit, how much is this one to build?
Depending on the number of LEDs you need, and the size of battery you buy, you could build this for less than $50(USD). I bought a bigger strip of LEDs to allow for mistakes, and a backup battery, and maybe spent $100USD.

Re: Cylon Eye - Larson Scanner from Adafuit

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:40 pm
by RAM_Doubler
For more details on how I installed this in the helmet, here's the post with pics!
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=2796&start=15#p30961

And here's some video of the installed eye in the finished helmet: