Solar TV-B-Gone

Ever wish that your kids would go out and play instead of watch another episode of Captain Planet?!  Especially when it's nice and sunny outside and the sprinklers aren't firing reclaimed water?  Me too!

Well, now you and your little rascals can achieve better recreation through technology.  Say hello to the SOLAR TV-B-GONE.  

The TV-B-Gone was dreamed up and made real by Mitch Altman -- I'm sure many of you reading this post no doubt have a small altar to Mitch in his or her workshop.  I know I do.  Mitch did a wonderful service by giving the average joe and jane a way to make some mayhem while on coffee break.  The problem is, the TV-B-Gone still required a human being to push a button to power down all of the CNN blaring monitors in SFO.  And the original device uses batteries, which is a bummer.  

Now, with the Solar TV-B-Gone, no human button-pusher needed.  When the sun comes up, all the TVs in the vicinity will go off.  No batteries needed either.  Sun up.  TV down.  Hide this little piece of tech somewhere it can get some rays, and be free of TV on sunny days.  Just shrug your shoulders when someone asks what's going on.  I don't know, but I hear an ice cream truck coming round the corner!


It's a big bright beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day....


Hardware:
1. Solar-Square (1-2 pcs)
2. Proto-Square (1 pc)
3. TV-B-Gone Kit (1 pc)
4. 100 ohm thru-hole resistor (or something close) (1 pc)
5.  100mF 5.5V Super-capacitor (1 pc)
6.  White thru-hole LED (1 pc)
7.  A couple paperclips

Software:
None

Tools:
1.  Soldering iron
2.  Snips
3.  A test TV

Step 1 Hardware

This Instructable is a combination of creations from Mitch Altman (via Adafruit) and B-Squares.  

Order your TV-B-Gone kit here:  http://www.adafruit.com/products/73

While you're at it, you'll need a Solar B-Square (or two) and a Proto B-Square, available here*:  http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/bsquares-c-205.html

And you'll need to buy a supercapacitor, 100ohm resistor, and white LED.

*Disclosure: You may have noticed, but this is a B-Squares Instructables account.  So, we make things with B-Squares, and try to sell some to other folks as well.  

Comments

[electfire]

@Matt..... I do believe that the chip in the TV-Begone (an ATtiny variant) has a self shutdown (either soft-coded or hard-coded in the design of the chip)... if not I'm sure that the code could be redesigned to turn off after one cycle.... Maybe you could even add a RTC (Real Time Clock) and set up some sort of solar power system... (kind of like a really fancy solar garden light.... that has an on board clock....) Then one could even program the chip to turn off the TVs during certain times even when it's dark or cloudy.... Though this would add complexity to the design, I do not think it would be too hard... though the size of the project would be a bit bigger.... making it less hide-able.....

[matthewvenn]

Great to see this project! I've been thinking of a similar thing. But the problem I came up with was how does the autonomous tvbgone know if a tv is off or not?

The way I understand this project to work, the tv will be continuously cycling on and off. What I want is an autonomous system that only turns off a tv.

Matt