Arduino Time Machine Control Box

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Arduino Time Machine Control Box

Introduction

I was at an estate sale and came across boxes of cool 1940-1970 misc electrical part. Lots of ruby crystal lamps that us incandescent bulbs, cigar boxes, old switches. I picked up a bunch of stuff for a couple of bucks.

So I figured using some of the stuff I picked up, make a cigar box with some switches, dial, knobs and lights, hook them up to a Arduino and see what I could come up with in a couple of evenings.

Basically turn someone's trash into internet Arduino treasure!

And yes I still need to build the time machine part, but at least I have the control box~

Parts

Parts that I picked up at the sale -

Cigar box, 1" pilot lamps and bulbs, very cool brass radio tuner (that fits a 1/4" potentiometer!) on off switches, some smaller lamps. $4 bucks.

Parts I bought -

Arduino knock off ($9.99)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P2FX9WY/ref=o...

Some NPN 2N3904 Transistors ($1)

220 olm 1/4 watt resistors

1 10K 1/4 shaft potentiometer(2 bucks)

A 9v Battery holder (2 bucks)

9V battery

misc wire, nuts, bolts

Tools Needed:

Drill press (hand drill will work)

tin snips (to make the bracket for the potentiometer)

wood glue,

Silicon sealer (I use this a lot in place of glue - sticks to everything)

What It Does

Turn on the power, the red power light will come on, the green power level light will be on solid.

Start with the dial turned all the way to the left - zero.

Start turning the dial to the right, at about 50 the clear light will come on.

As you are turning the dial, the green power level light will start to increase in its blinking frequency

Keep cranking the dial and about at 97 the red light will come on.

Once the red light is on, you can press the button (the button won't do anything before the red light is on)

Once pressed a buzzer will buzz for .5 seconds, then 1 second, then 1.5 seconds.

that's it!

I used this to understand how better to use a Arduino - I wasn't aware of the PWM ports before, how to start using transistors to turn things on vs the cheap but bulky relay boards and get a general idea how not to wire something in a kinda small box.

That's it!

Wiring Diagram

Rather than a full wiring diagram, I included the details for anything that connected to the Arduino - which is pretty much everything.

I used 220 olm resistors and 2N3904 transistors for everything. I kinda did the math in the beginning but they seemed to work so I went for it.

For the lamps, they are 6v and I've got them connected to 9V. They do work real well (real bright) so what I did was hook them up to PWM pins on the Arduino and used about 1/2 of the max value that makes them light up like a 6V would.

Wiring - Well I kept adding to the initial project so the wiring is a rats nest - completely. I had an Arduino developer hat I SHOULD OF used to put the transistors on and manage the grounds/Vcc from. Next time. I'm pretty good at wiring things and I'm the first to admit this is a mess. But once in the box and double sided taped down, it should ride ok. Just going to sit on the coffee table.

The Code


/* A box that does something.
 Box, light, switches and knobs all found at an estate sale for 4 bucks (along with a lot more goodies!)
 Arduino knock off, 10k pot, batter holder, transistors, wire, resistors about 15 bucks.
 So, I'm into this for about 20 bucks.  
 
 Premise - 
 As dial is turned to the right, the green light will continue to flash faster.
 When ~50% of the dial is reached, the clear light goes on
 When ~ 95% of dial is reached, the red light goes on
 Program will pay attention to the push button when red light is on
 When the button is pushed, the buzzer will pulse for .5, then 1 sec then 1.5 seconds
 
 Power light is taken directly from a Arduino pin vs battery.
 
 Green light - 
 Dial turned to the left - pot at full 10K - that's how I wired it so the arduino will see it
 As black dial is turned, analog read on A0 will go down.
 far left - about 960, far right about 16, middle of black dial about 852 
 delay((sensorValue+100)/10) so (960+100)/100 = 1000 or 1000ms or one second - get it?
 As numbers go down, the delay between pulses goes down - light flashes faster.
 
 
 */</p><p>#define POWER_LIGHT  7  
#define BUTTON 6
#define BUZZER 5  
#define LED_BUILTIN 13
int lamp_0 = 9;
int lamp_1 = 10;

// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
  // initialize serial communication at 9600 bits per second:
  Serial.begin(9600);
  // initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
  pinMode(BUZZER, OUTPUT);   
  pinMode(BUTTON, INPUT);     
  pinMode(POWER_LIGHT, OUTPUT);</p><p>  digitalWrite(POWER_LIGHT,HIGH); 
  digitalWrite(BUZZER,LOW); </p><p>  analogWrite(lamp_0, 0);
  analogWrite(lamp_1, 0);
}

// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {
  // read the input on analog pin 0:
  // if we are all the way to the left - max olm's set the green output light full on. 
  int sensorValue = analogRead(A0);
  if(sensorValue > 990){
    digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH); // Turn on the green light full on and continue.
    return;
  }  
  // if we are at the ~50% mark on dial turn on the first light
  // we are using PWM to drive the light. since it is a 6v light we are running the pwm at 50%
  // from the 9v battery seems to work well :-)
  if(sensorValue < 852)
    analogWrite(lamp_0, 128);
  else
    analogWrite(lamp_0, 0);  
  //
  // We we have the dial almost all the way to the right,
  // we will turn on the red light AND pay attention to the 
  // button push.  
  //
  if(sensorValue < 16){
    analogWrite(lamp_1, 200); // 256 is full on PWM
    if (digitalRead(BUTTON) == HIGH) { // check for button push 
      // ok going to turn the buzzer off and on .5, 1, 1.5 then off
      digitalWrite(BUZZER, HIGH);
      delay(500);
      digitalWrite(BUZZER, LOW);
      delay(500);
      digitalWrite(BUZZER, HIGH);
      delay(1000);
      digitalWrite(BUZZER, LOW);
      delay(500);
      digitalWrite(BUZZER, HIGH);
      delay(1500);
      digitalWrite(BUZZER, LOW);
    }  
  }
  else { // we want to turn OFF the light and the buzzer below 95% on the dial
    analogWrite(lamp_1, 0);
    digitalWrite(BUZZER, LOW); 
  }
  Serial.println("sensorValue:");
  Serial.println(sensorValue);
  //
  // we are using this to pulse the green light on and off
  // the further to the right - lower value of Sensorvalue - we want to
  // pulse the light faster so we do some math with the sensor value
  // that makes the light flash at a speed I like - total tuning here.
  //
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
  delay((sensorValue+100)/10);       // determine on and off time.
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW);    // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
  delay((sensorValue+100)/10);       // we delay here because we are in a tight loop and will be back here
  // before the delay time - except for a button push. 
}