Author: Peter Jones

a) I never knew what the Light Fantastic was referring to. I should look that up some time

b) I made nothing this weekend. Well that’s not true. I made a German Chocolate cake. From scratch, because that’s how I roll. I didn’t make that light I had been writing about. I lost inspiration momentarily. This brings up why I make stuff sometimes.
I make stuff because I want to. I sometimes have a purpose for that which I make. If the purpose is removed, should I still make? Due to the time based purpose, this situation is an even bigger dilemma. Due I make for the next handy purpose as purposes are relatively regular. Due I make for the making alone and toss in a corner. Now that the sudden inspiration has been delayed, die I just move on. In between bouts of gaming, I really pondered this. Why do I do what I do?
I probably make my box at some point. I’ll then throw it on a shelf shelf as a curio. If I ever need it, I’ll have it. Otherwise, it’ll be one project done. Next project.

Decent enough. Darkest beer found at the Alibi Room. It’s brewed in jolly old England. I never knew. I guess it’s too good to be brewed in Bellevue South.

Or turns out I have a social engagement. This will be a mild delay in my making stuff.

Thinking of what to do for tomorrow. I know what I was going to do, but then I realized I was missing midst of the stuff that would make it work. My current plan only requires things I have.
So. Altoids tin, 555 timer pulsing a red LED (like a heart beat) when a contact stitch is open (as in the box is open) all powered on a AAA battery (or AA if it will fit).
To do:
Plan circuit
Fab battery holder and contact switch
Think of doing an anatomical heart cut out
Breadboard circuit
Solder circuit

Right… well, if I have two pwm pins I can then have two LEDs lit at once with completely different timing and brightness. It’s cheesy but it work. By having them haphazardly strung… just a second. Was I second guessing myself for nothing. I have the rows… wait, I use all pwm with half the LEDs be in opposite sho that they do function as a diode. Yeah. Six pwm pins, each pin goes to two LEDs, but they’re going back to back. I then use a few more pins to selectively sink. I need to graph this out, because I’m really confused now.
I know. Surprise.

I would also like a moon base. Totally didn’t realize it until I actually cut wire. No use crying over spoiled milk.
Using 12 output pins (beyond the lack of 12 pwm pins) would be the easiest solution. Since I’m wanting to go pwm rather than persistence of vision, I’m limited to something like six out and no using the D in LED.
I think, assuming no desire to massively change the concept, I might just go all chaos on the wiring. If there were more input and output wire combinations than I really needed I could have pseudo randomization. Like six “rows” going to four sinks might work. Of course, this would start to diminish my extensibility rather fast. I might have to start doing some charts.

I was getting ready to go to bed, thinking of getting my solder on, mowing down some popcorn, and derp. LightBeer has a problem. If I put a pin up, the entire row is up. If I bring another pin down, the entire column is down. I can’t pulse in and out different bottles at different intervals. I need to think about this.