Sequential Flashing Lightbulbs?

[pinballjim]

Hello,

wondering if anyone knows of any print or online resources with
instructions for wiring a set of regular light bulbs and causing them
to flash in sequence?

Think Vegas or movie marquee style here.

Thanks!

pinballjim at hotmail dot com

 

[Ken Taylor]

Hello,

wondering if anyone knows of any print or online resources with
instructions for wiring a set of regular light bulbs and causing them
to flash in sequence?

Think Vegas or movie marquee style here.

Thanks!

Use Google, or any other friendly search engine. Terms: sequential light
circuit
There's plenty out there, but why you wouldn't buy one from a local shop
beats me. You need some extra electronics and as you are clearly a newbie,
your satisfaction quotient will be higher with the commercial unit, which
will probably be as cheap or cheaper than anything you built anyway.

Ken

 

[John Fields]

Hello,

wondering if anyone knows of any print or online resources with
instructions for wiring a set of regular light bulbs and causing them
to flash in sequence?

Think Vegas or movie marquee style here.

---
wire them up as three strings of parallel lamps like this:


1HOT>---------+--------+--------
| |
2HOT>------------+--------+-----
| | | |
3HOT>---------------+--------+--
| | | | | |
O O O O O O
| | | | | |
NEUT>---------+--+--+--+--+--+--


Then turn on 1HOT and turn on 2HOT when you turn off 1HOT, then turn on
3HOT when you turn off 2HOT, then start over again when you turn off
3HOT.

 

[Ron Hubbard]

Try Discover Circuits (below). They say they have over 7000
circuits and I think I saw what you want some while back wile
looking for something else.

http://www.discovercircuits.com/


pinballjim wrote in message ...

 

[Baphomet]

Hello,

wondering if anyone knows of any print or online resources with
instructions for wiring a set of regular light bulbs and causing them
to flash in sequence?

Think Vegas or movie marquee style here.

Insufficient information. It would be helpful to know what voltage you are
working at and whether it is ac or dc.

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Hello,

wondering if anyone knows of any print or online resources with
instructions for wiring a set of regular light bulbs and causing them
to flash in sequence?

Think Vegas or movie marquee style here.

Thanks!

pinballjim at hotmail dot com

As Baphomet already said, your request is a bit light on detail. But
it's a fair assumption that the lights are mains-powered ('regular,
'Vegas'), so the key missing points for me would be:
- how many light bulbs?
- your electronics skill level?

But, begging the second question, I'd suggest this. For every 10 bulbs
you could use one 4017, clocked at an appropriate (and manually
variable) frequency by a 555 astable. Take the 4017 outputs via a
suitable driver stage to individual triacs, wired in series from mains
240/110V through individual bulbs.

Hmm - I suspect that's going to start getting expensive, especially if
you have a whole street of lights in mind. Better idea, again as
already suggested, buy a device ready made!

 

[pinballjim]

I want to use 60 watt incandescent light bulbs running off of 120 VAC.
Have seen plenty of circuits designed for LEDs, but that is not the
effect I want.

Searches for "sequential light circuit" haven't turned up much so far
- I would be more than happy to look at commercial units if I only
knew what they were called and where to look.

Thanks for everyone's help so far!

 

[Frank Buss]

Searches for "sequential light circuit" haven't turned up much so far
- I would be more than happy to look at commercial units if I only
knew what they were called and where to look.

Perhaps you should search for less technical terms, e.g. christmas tree
ligh.

 

[Steve Roberts]

I want to use 60 watt incandescent light bulbs running off of 120 VAC.
Have seen plenty of circuits designed for LEDs, but that is not the
effect I want.

The small bulbs with the fast pretty chase or scoreboard response are
often krypton filled at a pressure high enough to help cool the
filiment, so rememebr to try a gas filled lamp if it doesnt look good
like a classic marque. i recently watched a sign copany load a huge
advert sign during relamping with lamps with a normal vacuum fill, the
next week another sign compay was out there doing it again, with the
correct gas filled lamps, the difference in speed performance, was,
excuse the pun, night and day.

 

[John Fields]

I want to use 60 watt incandescent light bulbs running off of 120 VAC.
Have seen plenty of circuits designed for LEDs, but that is not the
effect I want.

Searches for "sequential light circuit" haven't turned up much so far
- I would be more than happy to look at commercial units if I only
knew what they were called and where to look.

Thanks for everyone's help so far!

 

[Frank Bemelman]

Don't build him one, instead, con$truct one for him
Also, offer to provide the lamp$ !

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

I did one for my own purposes, (1 of 4 active low outputs from the
chip) using senstive gate 4A triacs and a microcontroller. Zero
voltage switched and power supply from a reactive dropper. A speed pot
controls the flash rate. Very low parts count. If that would fit, and
you want a copy of the chip to build one for him, let me know and
we'll work something reasonable out.

http://www.speff.com/chaser4ch.jpg

It would probably need the triacs beefed up and a heatsink on them for
general purpose use, I designed this for only 40W/channel and used
tiny V-PAK parts w/o heatsink.

(I'm not particularly interested in building another copy or in
helping people who don't know what they are doing electrocute
themselves.)

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Ken Taylor]

I want to use 60 watt incandescent light bulbs running off of 120 VAC.
Have seen plenty of circuits designed for LEDs, but that is not the
effect I want.

Searches for "sequential light circuit" haven't turned up much so far
- I would be more than happy to look at commercial units if I only
knew what they were called and where to look.

Thanks for everyone's help so far!

Try 'sequential light controller' since you're happy to go commercial. An
example is:
http://www.kolin.com.ph/lightcontroller/index.html

Cheers.

Ken

 

[John Fields]

Don't build him one, instead, con$truct one for him
Also, offer to provide the lamp$ !