Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
PROJECT COMMISSION - Countdown Timer
capturefilms:
Hello,
I am looking for someone to build a countdown timer. It is to be used as a prop in a film.
I don't need the housing, just the electronic components, I have no experience with this kind of thing, so I am looking to commission someone to make it.
I need three components, that are programmable , hours (3 digits), mins (2 digits), seconds (2 digits), (see attached still). I do not need the wording of Hours, mins, Secs to be made, these will be part of the housing.
I have seen single, double and treble digit LED units (see attached still) and was hoping they could be made from something like this.
It will be placed in a custom housing, approximately 2.5 inches x 6 inches. any wires/components/power supplies can be easily hidden.
If anyone would like the challenge of building it or can point in me in the direction of someone than can that would be very much appropriated.
Many thanks in advance
alexanderbrevig:
Take my answer with a grain of salt and a slight language barrier (english is not my mother toungue):
You will spend more effort going back and forth with someone - figuring out where you did not clearly specify your requirements and where they assumed some of their own...
This takes an Arduino, some ebay-components and a few hours one sunday evening. You can follow along any number of step-by-step tutorial. And do it yourself (or someone on your team).
Please consider not outsourcing this, and take the opportunity to learn a new skill!
PS: I charge $175/hour, and I guess I'll spend 10 minutes programming what it turns out you want, 6 hours figuring out what you want, 3 hours fixing things when you change your mind and another 8 when you decide it needs to fit inside a box that supposedly is not unlimited in depth, and you want me to fabricate it. Now there is the whole shipping and insurance thing, transferring money thing, it just keeps on adding time. For what sounds like an initial 10 minute job. You'd pay ~$3000 if you were to pay what my actual clients pay - and why would you be different?
Good luck!
I'll gladly help finding some good and on-the-topic tutorials for you!
I wanted a rude username:
Adding to that, you might want to at least specify how the interface should work from your perspective. E.g. does the countdown also need to pause/stop/flash when, for example, an external wire is cut? Should it do something when it reaches 0? How is it programmed, e.g. a knob for each of the hour, minute, and second positions? Where are the controls mounted so they work with your case? And to make continuity easier, should there be an ability to pause the timer, and to reset it to the pre-programmed time?
The countdown timer itself is a simple problem, and people have already built pretty good ones using Arduino, which you can give as a homework problem to any moderately bright teenager. Here's an example which even has an optional ticking sound module. Like alexanderbrevig says, getting everything to suit the director's requirements will be the hard part. Finding a local electronic engineering student might be the best option for you, as it will decimate the turnaround time, and you will build a relationship that will make it easier for you to have other props created in future. You can try contacting your nearest hackerspace/makerspace.
Gyro:
I assume that this is the same request as https://www.eevblog.com/forum/jobs/lcd-display-for-film-prop/ Under a different username?
You have quite a lot of responses there.
capturefilms:
--- Quote from: I wanted a rude username on November 19, 2019, 11:39:21 pm ---Adding to that, you might want to at least specify how the interface should work from your perspective. E.g. does the countdown also need to pause/stop/flash when, for example, an external wire is cut? Should it do something when it reaches 0? How is it programmed, e.g. a knob for each of the hour, minute, and second positions? Where are the controls mounted so they work with your case? And to make continuity easier, should there be an ability to pause the timer, and to reset it to the pre-programmed time?
The countdown timer itself is a simple problem, and people have already built pretty good ones using Arduino, which you can give as a homework problem to any moderately bright teenager. Here's an example which even has an optional ticking sound module. Like alexanderbrevig says, getting everything to suit the director's requirements will be the hard part. Finding a local electronic engineering student might be the best option for you, as it will decimate the turnaround time, and you will build a relationship that will make it easier for you to have other props created in future. You can try contacting your nearest hackerspace/makerspace.
--- End quote ---
Thank you. the timer has to show different times over the course of the film. the hero has 7 days to complete his mission. so for example, we would want to see;
168:00:00 (countdown for 5 seconds)
124:00:00 (countdown for 5 seconds)
098:00:00 (countdown for 5 seconds)
etc, etc.
There are no wires to be cut, the timer will never reach zero.
We want the ability to programme in any time within the range and then film the piece for 5 seconds, then set a new time, film for 5 seconds and so on.
the example you gave looks excellent. Would there be a way to do this so that instead of 1 bard with 8 digits, there are three boards with 3, 2 and 2 digits? I have infinite space to hide the rest of the mechanism, we can drill through the car dash and put it in the passenger foot well for example, but the three sets of numbers are going to be placed where the radio was in a custom built housing
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