Monday, October 17, 2011

Project Update: Finescale Miniatures JS-13 Elijah Roth & Sons

I have made quite some progress working on lighting. I have identified all parts I need for it I have done initial version of the code. "Brain" for all of this is ATtiny4 microcontroller from Atmel. At least for starters. My code uses random number generator for welding light flicker. I hope it will look realistic enough. If not I may use predefined sequence which will need more program space than random number generator. If that is the case I will use ATtiny10 microcontroller. Actually, ATtiny9 would be sufficient but Mouser doesn't have it in  stock. LEDs will take some experimentation since it is hard to figure out what looks good based on specs. I could get some of them from Ngineering but that would take half of the fun. Plus I would pay separate shipping. Anyway, I will learn more by doing it myself.
My initial algorithm is as follows. 15 second silence; steady interior and exterior light. 0.6 second welding start; white and blue welding light on; interior and exterior lights dim quite a bit. 14.4 seconds welding; blue light is off; white welding light flickers randomly; interior and exterior lights flicker in opposite direction. I am certain it won't look correct right from the start but with some adjustments I hope to achieve believable result.
Now I need to order parts from Mouser. My biggest investment is microcontroller programmer. Hopefully, I will find more use for it in the future so it pays off.

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