Lights with a mind of their own.
in [Design]
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From: Winston on 8 Apr 2010 01:09 On 4/7/2010 5:32 PM, Winfield Hill wrote: > Anybody can help with the Genie, much appreciated! I can reproduce that issue by pressing the square button on my 'wall console'. The light remains on. If I cycle power to the opener with the light on, it will revert to a 'light off' condition as soon as power is restored. I think your light bulb filament is now open, explaining the 'excessive dark' symptom you mentioned. Further info from Genie: 1-800-849-3998(U.S.) http://www.genie-garage-opener.com/ Thank you Dr. Hill for _Art of Electronics_! --Winston
From: Jan Panteltje on 8 Apr 2010 10:42 On a sunny day (7 Apr 2010 17:32:09 -0700) it happened Winfield Hill <Winfield_member(a)newsguy.com> wrote in <hpj8690in2(a)drn.newsguy.com>: > Meanwhile my Western Digital MyBook World NAS > backup drive lights up with a bank of white LEDs, > as it tries, and fails, to emulate a Powerbook. Eh, my Seagate 1 TB external harddisk has a white LED that slowly goes on and off when it is in use, the LED is behind an ugly pattern of holes. I took an old floppy write protect label, and covered most of the holes. For the lights I my bedroom use LED strips and a PIC controller: http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/col_pic/ It has timers too, and switches on / off lights at any time you want in any color you want. It an be driven from a PC via RS232 and can do disco light too. I use these RGB LED strips. ftp://panteltje.com/pub/col_pic/RGB_LED_strip_img0906.jpg So.. all solid state, Probably faster to make your own PIC LED light system than drive to a shop and buy something. You can use the source code, it is GPL.
From: Robert Latest on 8 Apr 2010 13:41 Winfield Hill wrote: > Meanwhile my Western Digital MyBook World NAS > backup drive lights up with a bank of white LEDs, > as it tries, and fails, to emulate a Powerbook. > My wife complains of the errant changing light > interfering with her sleep, so I turned it around > and close my study door at night. Why don't you turn it off at night? > I'm busy 24-7 working on the book, Ah. That's why. Sadly I don't have the opportunity to design electronics any more (I've crossed to the other side -- semi manufacturing) but I'll buy that book at the first opportunity. Maybe as a substitute. What? You've been reading this? Go back to work! robert
From: Joerg on 10 Apr 2010 15:33 Winfield Hill wrote: > Well. To start, there's my front-porch light. > The light is switched with an X-10 module that's > gone over to the other side. Now when it's on, > it grows bright and dark every few seconds, in > a good imitation of my wife's Apple Powerbook's > LED standby-mode breathing pattern. I kind of > admire the show, but the neighbors are making > remarks to us about it. So that's on the list. > X10 is a pain in the neck. Poor protocol and IMHO poor quality. Many times a module has decided to runs its own little erratic timing sequences. > Meanwhile my Western Digital MyBook World NAS > backup drive lights up with a bank of white LEDs, > as it tries, and fails, to emulate a Powerbook. > My wife complains of the errant changing light > interfering with her sleep, so I turned it around > and close my study door at night. I considered > all the poorly-designed LED breathing indicators, > and imagine a design drawing power from the LED > pins and inoffensively lighting a new LED, much > like my wife's laptop. That's also on the list. > The MyBook World here has a ring which can only light in the color blue and it only blinks when accessed, usually. Otherwise it's on steady. > Kaack! Now my Genie garage-door opener is acting > up, first its incandescent light that kindly comes > on for 20 seconds every time you open or close the > garage door, decides it'll stay on all the time. > My wife tells me that it hasn't gone off in days. > I'm busy 24-7 working on the book, so I told her > to cycle its power: turn the circuit breaker off > and back on again. She does this. Now the garage > door opener still works fine, but its light stays > _off_ all the time. Sigh. I really don't want to > put this on my list. > > The last time it was our Casablanca ceiling fan. > It also played games with its lamp, and its motor > as well, going into various weird modes. That was > a failed storage capacitor, and it cost me a day > to take the fan apart, trace the circuit, and find > it. Yes, it saved hundreds of dollars buying a new > fancy fan, but who has the time? I mean, the book! > > Anybody can help with the Genie, much appreciated! > Same happened with one of the Genie screw drives here. "Why is the garage lit in the middle of the night?". A relay had developed a "growth" on one contact. I gently sand-papered that away and it's working again for years. However, I didn't want to do that standing on the ladder so I removed the board with the relays on there, popped the dust cap and fixed it. Don't forget to unplug the thing first. We are all waiting on the next AoE edition, so be careful on that ladder :-) -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
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