Now that I have completed the three circuits that I had planned to embed in the Steam Punk prop (Torch, Pulsing/Fading LED, LED Chaser) it’s time to put them together in a single main/sub configuration as they would be in the prop. I had to cheat a little here … I couldn’t find one of my male to male DuPont connectors and, rather than make a new one, I opted for the easier option of replacing the 2x2 SMD circuit with the 4 x 5 LED “Desk Light” circuit. In terms of testing the components together, this should really have no practical impact on the outcome. Sure, they are through hole components … and a lot more of them, so the only real difference from the perspective of testing the overall concept is that it will draw more power from the battery. In the embedded scenario, I need to rebuild ALL of the component circuits, so there really isn’t anything lost there.
I have connected a 9V battery to my trusty solderless breadboard and then connected each of the components to the power rails. The Torch and Pulsing/Fading circuits are connected to the 9V directly, whereas the LED Chaser is connected to 9V via a 5V Regulator (I opted for an early version of this as I didn’t need the optional LED power indicator).
The result is as expected … it all works just dandy. I should probably go ahead and work out power consumption so that I have an idea of how long the battery will last in the prop. I’m still toying with the idea of also embedding a battery charger circuit … but it is easy and cheap enough to use a commercial – “off the shelf” charger so I’m not going to bother with that … yet.
There are still more tweaks and optimisations that I am planning, but that’s for later.
I present to you the prototype embedded electronics of the Steam Punk prop …
Fiat Lux
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