how to cylon eye effect?

[tommulligan]

For halloween I plan on doing an original BSG cylon jackolantern. What would be the easiest/cheapest way of doing the roving eye effect.

Thanks

[USS Atlantis]

I'd probably use a cascading 4017 circuit

1st 4017 lights up 9 LED's in sequence, the 10th output starts up the 2nd 4017, which is connected to the same LEDs in reverse sequence

So, the 1st 4017 lights them in order of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, the 2nd 4017 lights them in order of 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1

Then the sequence starts over

Atlantis

[en'til Zog]

Hi, Tommulligan!

I like the idea of using the 4017 chip to 'cylon' a set of LEDs. Use a 4023 chip as the 'clock' to make the 4017 step through it's outputs from 0 to 9. I think there's a link to a schematic on this set of chips in one of the main stickies on this forum.
http://www.kc6sye.com/images/circuits/4 ... pdated.jpg

The simple way to make a cylon skan is to connect the outputs from the 4017 to alternate LEDs in a series like this:
0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -- 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 0 - 2 4017 OUTPUTS
1 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 9- 10 - 8 - 6 - 4 - 2 - 1 - 3 LEDs

The 'lit' LEDs will seem to start at one side (LED # 1) skip to LED #3 then LED #5, then LED #7, Then LED #9, and then LED #10, then seem to reverse when LED #8 lights, then LED #6, then LED #4, then LED #2 and then finally back to LED #1 and the sequence starts over again. Yeah, the LEDs skip in sequence but the final effect is a good cheap cylon scan.

You can use 2 @ LEDs from each 4017 output (in series) to 'smooth out' the action, but with small displays just using 10 LEDs works well and is a nice 2 chip solution.

[NNYGamer]

like this> http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article ... onOLantern

[Sparky]

There is another web site with a more complicated circuit for counting up and down, I'l post it when I get to work tomorrow.

[tetsujin]

For halloween I plan on doing an original BSG cylon jackolantern. What would be the easiest/cheapest way of doing the roving eye effect.

Thanks

You know there's one of those in the Make Magazine Halloween special? It's worth checking it out...

Basically, their circuit includes not only the cascade up/down counter that's part of the "standard approach" but they also have a transistor/capacitor circuit on each LED in order to slow down the response time, giving each LED a little bit of fade-in/fade-out to imitate the incandescent lights used in the original effect... (Actually, the link NNYGamer provided is the same circuit - possibly the same Jack-O-Lantern that was in the magazine...)

[tommulligan]

Thanks for the info everyone. Can anyone recomend a reliable vendor for the material. This will be first attempt at lighting.

[Sparky]

sorry for the late post on this:
http://attiny.com/knightrider.htm

Go with Digikey or Mouser, they are both in the sticky thread Where to buy stuff.

I have been kicking around the idea of making up a circuit board from the above link. Something small enough to fit in raider i got from the SM store. I got both scales and would like them both to be lit.

[en'til Zog]

I've got a Cylon Scanner on top of my computer that's been Scanning constantly since the mid 1970's. Updating it, I use a Binary UP/DOWN counter ( 4515 ? ) driving a 4 - 16 line MUX/DEMUX chip ( 4516 ? ) and using a quad 2 input chip (no clue at this point) as the flip flop to control the upping and downing.

I guess more than 30 years of constant operation indicates a certain reliability. I'll try and dig out the circuit, but the 4023/4017 circuit is much simpler.

[jwrjr]

I use a microcoltroller to get the 'cylon scanner' effect. It uses 1 chip (2 if you include the voltage regulator). All you need is somebody like me who knows how to program the things.