Coffin - a Light Installation

Blink! yes IT is!. Hello I am Göksenin Güngör from Turkey. I am Electrical and Electronics Engineer. Because of my personal interest in microcontrollers and embeded software I am making projects like this since the first year of university. IoT, PLC, indoor positioning systems and PCB design was my first subjects of interest.At 2015 I started working Maker Çocuk as in-house maker, educator and R&D engineer in Istanbul. Maker Çocuk is an Maker Space for children. We are doing Maker Workshops for them in here. You can check it out www.makercocuk.com.

The main experience I get from this is as a Maker I have to make the children, their parents or visitors to experience even the most complex things as if they are the most basic thing to do.

What is Coffin?

Actually Coffin is the case of this project. We call it coffin because it is like a coffin. But we couldn't find a name for this installation. So thats how we name it :D

The starting point of coffin was the Blink! It is a Hello, World! for electronics and microcontrollers. After that we complete blink example, we ask them to multiply the LEDs and program them seperately. They always do something like a Knight Rider KITT circuit. That was our AH-HA moment. How can we make guests experience this with a bigger thing?

I think I have to describe to module of this project first. Roughly it has 3 modules.

1 - Power Distribution (220V AC Line, 9V Adapter and Power Distribution Board)

2 - Bulb Modules (Buld Controllers and Bulbs)

3 - Microcontroller (Arduino 101)

4- Assembly

TOOLS

CNC router (or use 3rd party)

Heat Gun

Wire Cutters

Solder

BOARDS + KITS

Arduino 101

MATERIALS

9 x R1 - 330ohm

9 x R2 - 22Kohm

9 x R3 - 33Kohm

9 x R4 - 33Kohm

9 x R5 - 220ohm

9 x D1 - 10V 4W Zener

9 x D2 - 1N5408

9 x D3 - 1N5408

9 x D4 - 1N5408

9 x D5 - 1N5408

9 x D6 - 1N4007

9 x C1 - 2.2uF 63V

9 x C2 - 220nF 27.5v1

12V DC Adaptor

9 x E14 Light Bulb - Vintage

9 x E14 Light Bulb Socket

Total 50 - 70 meter 2 Different Colors Power Wires

Jumper wires (generic)

WARNING! DO NOT TRY TO BUILD THIS IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! IT HAS PLENTY OF HIGH VOLTAGE CIRCUTRY AND IT IS DEADLY. PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS! This module is most simple also most dangerous one. Please read the warning above 10 times loudly :D Our bulbs need juice from line. So you need to get a power cord for that. Any power cord will do the job. After that make a simple distribution board with protoboard like 2nd photo.

One set of wires should go to 9V adapter to power it up. You can disassemble the case of it like 3rd photo and solder the line wires to adapter input.

9V output will go to Arduino 101 and the other power wires in power distribution board will go to our Bulb Controllers. We will talk about that later.

Thats it :D Power Distribution module is complete! Good Job!

This part is the most time consuming part for me. Because I didn't do any PCB for that. So I have to do it with protoboard. Lets talk about schematic.

My first intention was controlling the brightness of the bulbs. But vintage bulbs have some heating time to reach it's max brightness. So this delaying effect comes naturally so my circuit is not required but optional. You can use optocouplers or some relays if you like the sound of them. Personally I don't want to hear that clicking sound and I already made the controllers so I didn't have to buy optocouplers. You need 9 of them. Make sure to get some connectors for power cables. Remember the power wires before. Yes they will connect to 220V input of this controller. And your bulb will connect to circuit with E14 Bulb Connectors. Becareful while soldering the 4N35. They are not tolerant to excess temp. To sum up we have 2 inputs and 1 outputs in this circuit. First input is 220V Second input is from Arduino 101 to turn bulb on/off Output is Bulb After completing the circuit it should look like below.

To test the circuit,simply connect Arduino inputs to GND and 5V and power input to 220V. Don't forget the warning above!

Bulb Modules are complete! Good Job!

Our software has some modules too. Let's check the flowchart below.

We will setup the outputs, IMU calibrations and interrupts at Setup

After that a interrupt controller will bring and check if there is movement or not.

If there is movement it will call the bringPitch() function. If not it will wait 5 seconds then call flashAnimation() function in void loop.

Before starting I recommend you to look at the Arduino sketch of this project from this link -

https://github.com/dopplerDistortion/Swifty/blob/m...

We have 9 bulb controllers right? Now we have to connect all of them to Arduino 101. I use Arduino 101 because at that time Intel Turkey gifted us this board so I wanted to try it. It has a IMU inside the Curie Module this is the all I need.

We will connect the all Arduino inputs I setup D13 to D4 as a output you can connect them to bulb controllers.

Thats it if you are convinced that you make it. Proceed the assembly.

I think you can manage to do it by your self after this step. The only crucial part is to getting ready the case of it.

Design files - https://github.com/dopplerDistortion/Swifty/tree/master/design

You need heat gun to bend acrylic sheet.

Plenty of Super Glue and Hot Glue some sheet screws. Check out the assembly photos.

Make sure to leave a feedback if you like this or not and do not hesitate to message me if you have any questions or sugesstions :)

Have a nice weekend with making!