DIY Electronic Birthday Blowout Candles

Step 1: The Circuit

Step 2: Building the Circuit board

Step 3: Soldering the Circuit board

Step 4: Programming the Micro

Step 5: Using the Candles

To power the circuit, you need 4 batteries of 1.2V, AA or AAA size or 3 batteries of 1.5V (AA or AAA size).

Using the blowout candles is easy. Of course you need a cake to be able to use the candles :).

We organized a fictitious birthday party with a virtual cake to celebrate the project and a video of that party and the birthday candles

If the video isnt working, you can try this youtube link: Birthday Candles Video

Comments

[Adambowker98]

So, um.... How do you make it? All the steps are blank!

[Lithium Rain]

Hey, you have a bunch of blank steps on here. Nobody can figure out how to make this. It's very sad T_T

[purpulhaze]

Do i need to be a pro member to see this instructable?

[watermelonhead]

pics pwease?

[T3h_Muffinator]

This looks awesome! I'm just wondering - where's the analog input pin of the uC? I looked at your schematic and it seems as if you just have it in a resistor network on VCC.

[cedtlab]

Hi, Thanks for your comment. Tiny45 has several analog input pins. Pin1 (is PortB5 and is also ADC0 input ) is one of them. We used that to read the voltage at the junction of R3 and R4. R3 is the thermistor and R4 is a fixed value resistor. Since the other end of R3 is grounded, as the thermistor cools off, its resistance increases (the thermistor is an NTC, i.e. has a negative temperature coefficient) and so the voltage at the junction of R3 and R4 increases.

[bikeNomad]

Why bother with the heater (R2)? It's a big load on the battery (though so are the LEDs...) and shouldn't be needed. Did you try using self-heating?

By using the self-heating of the thermistor itself you should be able to detect the cooling caused by air movement.

Just run enough current through the thermistor that it heats up a few degrees above ambient (and not enough to damage it), and look for quick changes in the port voltage.

You'd be best off to use a much smaller thermistor, though (perhaps something like this cheap thermistor.

[bewakoof]

Awesome work and extraordinary description

[Derin]

BOLD

[Derin]

'[linktest:// test for links]'

[emuman4evr]

Whats a thermistor, never heard of that before.

[cedtlab]

A thermistor is a temperature dependent resistor.
More information is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermistor

Thanks,

[driesyo]

(removed by author or community request)

[=SMART=]

Hahahahahaha Cool !!

[nickstewartroc]

This is AWESOME i think i will have to make this and put it on my birthday cake since its coming up in a month(August 12)

[Culturedropout]

Just be sure to use lead-free solder and other components. It'd suck to get lead-poisoning on your birthday... ;-/

[cedtlab]

what we are planning to do is to put the electronics and batteries in a food grade plastic box with just the LEDs and sensor sticking out.

[nickstewartroc]

Thats a good idea, i think that is what ill do for my cake :)

[gauravrewatkar311]

good very interesting !!!!!!!!!!! all my regards go to the " IDEA MAN " GREAT THINKING i am expecting something new next month also!!!!!! great job

[joshbond_2007]

you mean 4x1.5volts

[Gadre]

I mean four re-chargeable (NiCd or NiMH) batteries which are typically 1.2V each, so thats 4x1.2 volts Using 4x1.5V batteries (for example the alkaline ones) would not be advisable since the microcontroller cannot handle 6 volts.

[papiya]

cool..so the modela makes ready to use boards now!..gr8..lots of time saved

[sotsirh194]

Just so you know this was featured in one of my electronics design magazine. It was way in the back and there wasn't much instruction on how to build it.