A SpareBot-inspired spaceship:
It’s more fun, of course, when the LEDs actually light up:
Here’s the circuit diagram – basically three LEDs in parallel, a battery, and a magnetic reed switch:
A resistor is added to each of the red LED branches; this is to limit the current in those branches so that the white LED gets some current as well. Without the resistors, the bulk of the current will flow in the red LED branches (which have less resistance), and the white LED will not light as the current flow through it will be extremely small.
Since the ship’s just held in place by wires, turning on and off a mechanical switch would eventually flex the ship out of shape. Hence a magnetic reed switch is used, it’s more streamlined and you can hide it in the fuselage without anything sticking out.
32 Responses to “SpareShip!”
- 1 Trackback on May 12, 2009 at 5:23 pm
- 2 Trackback on May 13, 2009 at 12:01 pm
- 3 Trackback on May 13, 2009 at 12:29 pm
- 4 Trackback on May 13, 2009 at 1:44 pm
- 5 Trackback on May 13, 2009 at 2:52 pm
- 6 Trackback on May 14, 2009 at 12:44 am
- 7 Trackback on May 14, 2009 at 6:50 am
- 8 Trackback on May 14, 2009 at 9:01 am
- 9 Trackback on May 14, 2009 at 3:00 pm
- 10 Trackback on May 15, 2009 at 9:13 am
- 11 Trackback on May 21, 2009 at 12:00 pm
- 12 Trackback on May 21, 2009 at 2:58 pm
- 13 Trackback on May 21, 2009 at 3:40 pm
- 14 Trackback on May 21, 2009 at 5:05 pm
- 15 Trackback on May 23, 2009 at 8:01 pm
- 16 Trackback on June 28, 2009 at 6:20 am
- 17 Trackback on August 27, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Too cool! To boldly go where no LED has gone before…..
Absolutely lovely!
Aww, adorable!
Oh wow!! Amazing!! I love it.
I love it!
Amazing job!
Very very nice ^_^
Excellent post! I really enjoyed viewing your work. I will be back for more!
Sincerely,
Roy Ledford
http://organicgardeningandorganicmealsnews.blogspot.com/
I built a very similar project but on a larger scale and with the star trek theme song (speaker as the forward antenna)
4 leds (two reds on the backs of the nacelle and color changing ones on the front)
2 reed switches
built in speech and recorder for star trek theme
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38422722@N06/3532190287/
Hello!
Um @seth troisi, your Flickr site tells me that it is set to be private. That after insisting that I sign up for Flickr services.
Despite that it happens to be a good idea.
@Mr. Wolf, are you aware that at one point, the Enterprise was one of twelve such commissioned ships?
Eventually they became the first twelve of many, complete with names as meaningful as the Enterprise is to most of us.
@GCL: No, I didn’t know that. There’s just too many ships in that universe to keep track of!
You’re cool!
superb basic idea , nice demostration for new learner , having no idea about reed switch, great .
What materials would you need? I’m a noob but want to do this for a science project
You’ll need a 3V cell, 3 resistors, 3 LEDs and a magnetic reed switch. There are a variety of ways of connecting up a 3 LED circuit, just search for a circuit that suits your needs. The magnetic reed switch takes the place of the usual switch in the circuit.