BlinkyLamps is about the same as Blinky, but uses 16 christmas light string bulbs (from a 50 lights string) instead of coloured LEDs. The lamps are mounted in a wooden grid with some paper (as a diffusor) and a plexiglass cover in front of it. This results in 16 nice square "pixel" fields.
The output signals of the blinky circuit are passed through latches to take away the multiplexing. This needs a slightly different firmware as the pulse width modulation loop must contain the multiplexing loop, not vice versa as it is the case in the original LED Blinky. The power supply is a modified 6V/2A switching power supply bought from Pollin which now outputs about 5.2V. The rest of the circuit is exactly the same as used in the Blinky.
The name BlinkyLamps was choosen because it means about the same as BlinkenLights but sounds different and describes this circuit accurately.
For functions and operation instructions, see
Blinky.
Schematic/Firmware
⇒ more pictures
--
ArneRossius - 08 Mar 2006