|
|
Flashing Light Competition
|
This is a neon sign I had manufactured while I was at school, long story for another day. I drew the design backwards by accident and to my surprise the company faithfully reproduced it. It’s shown partially lit here but it’s not connected. This was a set up for the “flashing Light Prize” which seemed to just run for 3 years. This was my winning entry for 2018. The competition was to make a neon lamp flash with period of 1 second and a 50% duty cycle for 5 minutes.
I used a large tesla coil (out of shot here) arranged to produce a large field which can light a discharge tube close by. There was also a long springy wire close by and the field would attract the wire as it was earthed. When the wire came close to the top load of the coil an arc would form quenching the field enough for the neon to extinguish and the wire spring to release like a pendulum. With a bit of fine tuning the required conditions were met for the competition entry.
I think the prize was £200 which I put into a school’s STEM competition. The winning entry is still posted on my YouTube. I actually had two entries and I was far more impressed with the mechanism in the 2nd entry utilising the resistance of a plasma. This was an excellent competition got a lot of electronics guys thinking hard and some really ingenious gadgets were built. Unfortunately, the last one was 2018. The year before was for a tungsten lamp. I also had an entry for that year but didn’t win.
|
|
Forum
Gallery Home
Contact
Login
Off-Topic
Album list
Last uploads
Last comments
Most viewed
Top rated
My Favourites
Search![Flashing Light Competition
This is a neon sign I had manufactured while I was at school, long story for another day. I drew the design backwards by accident and to my surprise the company faithfully reproduced it. It’s shown partially lit here but it’s not connected. This was a set up for the “flashing Light Prize” which seemed to just run for 3 years. This was my winning entry for 2018. The competition was to make a neon lamp flash with period of 1 second and a 50% duty cycle for 5 minutes.
I used a large tesla coil (out of shot here) arranged to produce a large field which can light a discharge tube close by. There was also a long springy wire close by and the field would attract the wire as it was earthed. When the wire came close to the top load of the coil an arc would form quenching the field enough for the neon to extinguish and the wire spring to release like a pendulum. With a bit of fine tuning the required conditions were met for the competition entry.
I think the prize was £200 which I put into a school’s STEM competition. The winning entry is still posted on my [url=https://youtu.be/Pqt-0D1_HH4]YouTube[/url]. I actually had two entries and I was far more impressed with the mechanism in the 2nd entry utilising the resistance of a plasma. This was an excellent competition got a lot of electronics guys thinking hard and some really ingenious gadgets were built. Unfortunately, the last one was 2018. The year before was for a tungsten lamp. I also had an entry for that year but didn’t win.
Keywords: Miscellaneous](albums/userpics/10011/34/normal_neon_question2_copy.jpg "Click to view full size image
==============
Flashing Light Competition
This is a neon sign I had manufactured while I was at school, long story for another day. I drew the design backwards by accident and to my surprise the company faithfully reproduced it. It’s shown partially lit here but it’s not connected. This was a set up for the “flashing Light Prize” which seemed to just run for 3 years. This was my winning entry for 2018. The competition was to make a neon lamp flash with period of 1 second and a 50% duty cycle for 5 minutes.
I used a large tesla coil (out of shot here) arranged to produce a large field which can light a discharge tube close by. There was also a long springy wire close by and the field would attract the wire as it was earthed. When the wire came close to the top load of the coil an arc would form quenching the field enough for the neon to extinguish and the wire spring to release like a pendulum. With a bit of fine tuning the required conditions were met for the competition entry.
I think the prize was £200 which I put into a school’s STEM competition. The winning entry is still posted on my [url=https://youtu.be/Pqt-0D1_HH4]YouTube[/url]. I actually had two entries and I was far more impressed with the mechanism in the 2nd entry utilising the resistance of a plasma. This was an excellent competition got a lot of electronics guys thinking hard and some really ingenious gadgets were built. Unfortunately, the last one was 2018. The year before was for a tungsten lamp. I also had an entry for that year but didn’t win.
Keywords: Miscellaneous")
