Author Topic: The Flashing Light Prize  (Read 12830 times)

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Online RoGeorge

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Re: The Flashing Light Prize
« Reply #25 on: September 18, 2017, 03:42:41 pm »
IMHO, the rules for 2018 are too restrictive.
Why limiting it to Neon gas? And only 1Hz, and duty cycle only 50%?

Most lightning tubes are Mercury or Sodium based, or some other gas mixture. Neon is not used in signs since the 50's, except maybe in art installations.


Offline Brumby

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Re: The Flashing Light Prize
« Reply #26 on: September 19, 2017, 03:39:24 am »
The frequency and duty cycle aren't new ideas.  They've been included in the past.  For the gas discharge situation, this eliminates trivial solutions where a capacitor charges up until breakdown occurs, giving a brief flash.  You will have to design something a little more sophisticated.
 

Online RoGeorge

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Re: The Flashing Light Prize
« Reply #27 on: September 19, 2017, 07:16:20 am »
I see nothing wrong with "trivial" solutions.
It will be terrible boring if everybody will start using FPGAs or microcontrollers for precise timing and precise firing of the gas.

This competition was great last year especially for allowing very crude solutions to compete with very elaborated ones. That was the main reason for so many crazy approaches in the 2017 entries.

1Hz, 50% duty is very limiting, in the sense that it will eliminate most of the simple but very ingenious solutions, and will require more complex but standard approaches, in order to achieve the required timing. Also, 1Hz with what precision, an RC timing, Quartz, Rubidium?

A range of frequencies and duty factors is what I would have liked to see, as it was in 2017. To recap:
  • A permissive range will allow more imaginative solutions.
  • A restrictive range will lead to standard solutions.
  • This competition is all about imagination.
Then the gas, mostly Neon only is very limiting. I would have liked to see any kind of gas allowed.

Offline Brumby

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Re: The Flashing Light Prize
« Reply #28 on: September 19, 2017, 07:30:17 am »
You want more relaxed rules?  Ok ... How's this:

1. Build a circuit.
 

Online RoGeorge

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Re: The Flashing Light Prize
« Reply #29 on: September 19, 2017, 08:01:18 am »
OK then, it seems that I got it wrong. Sorry.

Best wishes with the 2018 edition.  :-+

Offline Howardlong

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Re: The Flashing Light Prize
« Reply #30 on: September 24, 2017, 09:20:06 am »
Here is a 2018 entry of mine, flashing a neon bulb off a 1.5v AAA cell.

 
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Offline SeanB

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Re: The Flashing Light Prize
« Reply #31 on: September 24, 2017, 10:04:00 am »
Remember a lot of lamp types also use neon as a fill gas, not necessarily because they want the red light, but because it performs another function. Some fluorescent lamp starters use neon in a Penning mixture ( generally the S151 low voltage ones) and almost all sodium lamps, both HPS and LPS, use neon as a fill gas part as well.
 


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