Single button fan/lights controller with LCD Mod (Finished)

good! really good!

I just love that black/white theme..

 

much better!!

 

Thanks

Another photo showing up my fingerprints on the polycarbonate:

 

thats wicked, looks a bit weird with the light escaping from between the bay covers though as its a bit uneven... the knob looks pretty cool - like a cresent moon what rotary encoder is that (part)?

 

The "unevenness" is only due to the reflections/position of the LED's inside and the jpeg compression. For some reason coolermaster decided to allow a small gap between each of the drives and bay covers resulting in light escaping from the sides and between devices.

The acrylic round the knob is circular, but I didn't take any of the photo's head-on so it looks like a crescent moon.

The rotary encoder was from rs iirc. Will check in a minute.

 

That is very cool. Maybe put a LED in the knob so you can tell what level it's at at night?

Someone here had been working for a while on doing something like this but I don't think they've ever done it yet (or was that you )

 

Ahhh I knew it! I'm gonna have to find a knob without a marking on it!

It's a rotary encoder so has no position (it spins endlessly). The level is shown on the display!

ALPS rotary encoder - RS Part No. 263-2930 - £4.70

/edit
A quick search showed that Pygo was thinking about attempting to make something similar here, though I must have missed that thread otherwise I'd have probably chipped in and helped at the time!

/side note: Coorz, did you get my e-mails?

 

I'm pretty sure it wasn't Pygo.

edit: found it here. It was NiHiLiST.

 

Looks very nice. I wish I knew how to make stuff like this.

Oh and your case looks very cool aswell.

 

/Yes i did thanks, i'll get to it later this evening or tomorrow morning, tired of the weekend (kids)

 

Hey, great mod, love it dearly. I got two white cathodes which I think I've regretted so I'm going to get my mate to make some led string like the one down the back of yours and at the bottom. How did you get the case feet like that?

 

Awesome job SteveyG...

Extremely nice.

 

Thanks for the comments.

The case feet were clear furniture dishes, designed to prevent your furniture making a nasty indentation on the carpet. The dishes were frosted with sandpaper, and then I just put three frosted white LED's in each.

 

EXCELLENT implementation.
i`ve actually started a similar project, which should fit in with my spidy mod.

as for your knob problem - on my project log (hopes this is not hijacking) i made clear nobs from acrylic by gluing acrylic pieces together and then rounding them all up, if u use normal glue it has a nice effect (which i like) of showing the different layers and when they glow it`s awesome!
i also made some other ones using the chloroform welding method and then u can`t see them connecting - they just look like one acrylic rod.
that way you can make the rod any shape/size you wish it to be AND it`s cheapo (though it looks awesome!).

hope this helped as your project HAS given me some great ideas to implement in my "spidersense"

 

Thanks for the info Best work comes from the most wonderful objects heheh. I wonder if you could give me some advice. I'm a big fan of teh way you've got that futuristic spaceship effect (imo anyway) where you have dark parts and white leds like something out of Aliens

I bought some white cathodes but instead of them being white they just seem bright- like when you walk into a supermarket at night when it's pitch black outside yet the supermarket has these really bright lights. They're not white, just bright. I dunno maybe I'm just imagining it. What I actually did was got black electrical tape and covered parts of teh cathodes, left a few mm then covered a bit again so on and so forth. It didn't work though, and just really brightens up my case instead of giving me teh cool look yours has. I' might have to steal your idea on the led string, I hope u dont mind it's just mind blowing Could u give me any advice on any of the aforemetioned stuff? I might be missing something or not buying the right equipment. I just want a nice case with white lighting

 

This may have been answered in somewhere, but are you going to post the schematic for all to view? Or even better, would you be willing to make one for me? name your price.

 

Excellent work. I really like the scheme and the minimalistic, finished look. The single drive bay idea really helps it out. Kudos ot the poster that suggested that.

Out of curiosity, what pic programmer do you use? Or did you roll your own?

 

Thanks for the kind comments guys!

smurkey:

I know what you're saying about the cold cathode lamps. They give of so much light in every direction, they just flood the case with light.
The LED's don't have this effect because they tend to only give off the majority of light in one direction, which casts occasional shadows, and accents certain parts, though when I have the LED's up at full it's still pretty darn bright.

Jesse:

I should be making some if people request me doing so after I finish Uni (mid june), and will also put the circuit diagram up on here. But at the moment I don't have enough time to draw up the diagrams as I'm extremely busy at uni, and in an act to try to make me focus more - I left anything related to electronics at home

Glycerine:

I use my own implementation of the Velleman kit that is available from Maplin, since my friends all had good results with it. Before that I used the JDM one, but didn't like it much.

 

Thanks for the information Steve, as I expected.... and that's what I really like about your case, the way that the lights and shadows work so well together. I have a friend with a degree in Electronics so I might ask him to get me to do a string of LEDs. Could you give me some advice on how you made them please? Voltage/type of lights/where from (if possible) etc. Many thanks.

 

edit- I've just spoken to my friend who says its a piece of p**s to do this, sounds good so far, then he told me its 3 quid an led though!
Anyhow I'm going to bite the bullet and go for this, I don't know if I can name "computer parts" retailers on here but for those of you who might know I'm currently looking at a website with a red, white and blue theme looking through their LED stock. The following white LEDS are available, the first being 3mm and the second 5 mm.

3 high power, extreme brightness, 5mm white LEDs, which have superior weather resistance. These LEDs are ideal for use in advertising signs, indicators, illuminations and LCD backlight applications. The cathode is denoted by the shortest leg.

An extreme brightness 3mm white LED with a spectral output from 750nm to 470nm approx.
The cathode is denoted by the the shortest leg.

It would be really helpful IF you did get them from this company that you could provide me with the product numbers of the products you used to connect these LEDS together and the product number of the LEDS themselves cheers matey. If you're on msn mine is joelmspencer@hotmail.com