Nick of the Nick Electronics YouTube channel wished to construct a cool accent lamp and determined to get formidable with it. Not solely did his idea require 100 particular person filament LEDs, but it surely additionally integrated bodily rotation for dynamic visuals. That got here with many challenges, as Nick covers in his construct video.
Nick’s thought was to stack a bunch of spinning discs to type a tower. Every disc would have filament LEDs mounted to it. So, there have been two main challenges: spinning the discs and transferring energy to the LEDs on the spinning discs.
That second problem is a standard one in lots of industries and the everyday answer is a slip ring, which might move electrical energy by way of contacts on a rotating joint. For this lamp, Nick tried to make his personal slip rings built-in into the PCB discs that host the LEDs. The primary PCB within the stack has round traces on its high facet and the following PCB within the stack has spring contacts on its backside facet that experience alongside these traces. To get each the constructive and unfavorable sides of the circuit, there are two round traces and two spring contacts per board.
That’s logical in concept, however proved to be unreliable in apply. Any minor wiggle throughout rotation would trigger a minimum of one contact to cease touching its round hint, inflicting energy loss on that PCB and each PCB above it.
Nick then experimented with a few different options, together with inductive coils and helical springs for higher contact in each rotation instructions, even with wiggle. However these did not work effectively, both. Finally, Nick settled on merely operating wires unfastened sufficient to permit for some rotation earlier than binding.
Every disc has a slot, into which a pin from the previous disc rides. The slots comply with arcs alongside 45° of a circle. So, the discs all spin in sequence, offset by 45°. Mixed with reversing rotation, the ensuing staggered motion impact is mesmerizing.
Electronically, the remainder of the construct was fairly easy. Only a microcontroller, driver, and stepper motor on the highest, with filament LEDs on the discs. There’s dimming of the higher LEDs on account of voltage drop, however I believe that truly appears sort of cool.