Here ' 's an easy Arduino Halloween project which will flicker a common 120 volt light bulb lik...

[G+_Telford Dorr]

Here''s an easy Arduino Halloween project which will flicker a common 120 volt light bulb like a lantern in the wind. NOTE: you will be working with 120 volts AC, which requires an advanced level of skill and caution. If you don't feel comfortable with that, you can apparently buy the needed hardware ready-made (see comments below for details).

 

Here's a link: http://flowcon.us/td/hwmach

 

Enjoy!

[G+_Telford Dorr]

Note: website available 9am to 9pm pacific time

[G+_James Hughes]

Never heard of a website with open hours.

[G+_Telford Dorr]

Well, that's because it's old school, running on an old e-machine box on my desk. I used to leave it on all the time, but reviewing the activity logs showed continuous probing by various east Asian countries all night, so now I just turn it off.

[G+_Telford Dorr]

I got an email on my website from John Davis who pointed out a ready-made module containing all of the I/O hardware needed to make this project work. This is an answer for those of you who don't want to build the hardware (or are not comfortable with building the line voltage level hardware) needed for this project.

 

As a benefit, it works with both 120 and 240 volt power. (Note: if using on 240 volt 50 hz European power, you will have to tweak the step delay value in the code to maintain full dimming range.)

 

Use the 'interrupt' version of my code with this hardware.

 

Connections:

 

Module ----- Arduino

----------- -----------

+5 vdc +5 vdc

Gnd Gnd

Sync D3

Gate D13

 

One other detail: the module uses a HIGH output to trigger the triac, while my hardware uses a LOW. No biggie: just change the #defines in the code so that ON = HIGH and OFF = LOW. (This is why we use #defines - makes changes like this easy!)

 

They also have multi-channel modules for those of you who want to expand this code to multi-channel, but don't feel like assembling hardware.

 

Got feedback from John, and he says the modified interrupt code works well with the Krida board.

inmojo.com - AC LED Light Dimmer Module with Heatsink - Krida Electronics - InMojo