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Not to be confused with the biological warfare whistleblower's group, the Sunshine Project. This is an alarm clock that wakes you up with light!
All Electronics was selling a whole pile of 125VAC switching timers, salvaged from old Mr. Coffee models, available here.
I'm not a huge fan of kitchen robots that stew coffee for me at too-early in the morning. The first thing that popped to mind was, "wow, I could use those and have an alarm that let me wake up to a real sunrise!"
It's none-too-sunny here in Boston, and I'm an extra big fan of sunshine. So I'm delighted to be able to control my own sunrises. I'm also a light-sensitive sleeper with two roommates and I feel a little uncivil just blasting my favorite tunes to myself wake up when I could use the SUNSHINE instead!
The first time the lightbulb went off over my head, I knew I had to replicate it, multiply the effect by sixteen, and do that every single day!!
So I set out to build the sunshine alarm!
All Electronics was selling a whole pile of 125VAC switching timers, salvaged from old Mr. Coffee models, available here.
I'm not a huge fan of kitchen robots that stew coffee for me at too-early in the morning. The first thing that popped to mind was, "wow, I could use those and have an alarm that let me wake up to a real sunrise!"
It's none-too-sunny here in Boston, and I'm an extra big fan of sunshine. So I'm delighted to be able to control my own sunrises. I'm also a light-sensitive sleeper with two roommates and I feel a little uncivil just blasting my favorite tunes to myself wake up when I could use the SUNSHINE instead!
The first time the lightbulb went off over my head, I knew I had to replicate it, multiply the effect by sixteen, and do that every single day!!
So I set out to build the sunshine alarm!
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Here's how this part of the instructable is free!
The alley behind my house fills up with all manner of cast-off junk on trash days - windsurfer masts, foam Sox #1 hands, dishwashers, lamps, and more. Every single week. So I waited around until someone threw out one of those tree lamps and harvested its three low-hanging Edison socket-fruit.
Free Edison sockets!! Did you know light bulb sockets were called Edison sockets? I didn't. I like the term a lot.
I didn't exercise the patience to wait for another trash day, though, and just picked up the rest for around $0.40 each at the Urban Ore Ecopark, which is this gigantic urban recycling center that takes, sorts, and resells useful junk of every color, in Berkeley, CA. Go there.
Why aren't there more of stores like the Urban Ore Ecopark?
People are throwing away your future sunshine alarm, every day!
I also salvaged someone's old motion-sensor flood light. Those things are sweet! I saved the timer/photodetector assembly for some other project. I think it's cute that part of my fake-sunshine project is fed by a device that was previously used to turn lights on with the sunset.
The other things I used for this project were, a big flat piece of wood to mount everything on, and a bunch of solid state relays that I got for cheap at so I could control the individual lights with a microcontroller (optional but cool).
The alley behind my house fills up with all manner of cast-off junk on trash days - windsurfer masts, foam Sox #1 hands, dishwashers, lamps, and more. Every single week. So I waited around until someone threw out one of those tree lamps and harvested its three low-hanging Edison socket-fruit.
Free Edison sockets!! Did you know light bulb sockets were called Edison sockets? I didn't. I like the term a lot.
I didn't exercise the patience to wait for another trash day, though, and just picked up the rest for around $0.40 each at the Urban Ore Ecopark, which is this gigantic urban recycling center that takes, sorts, and resells useful junk of every color, in Berkeley, CA. Go there.
Why aren't there more of stores like the Urban Ore Ecopark?
People are throwing away your future sunshine alarm, every day!
I also salvaged someone's old motion-sensor flood light. Those things are sweet! I saved the timer/photodetector assembly for some other project. I think it's cute that part of my fake-sunshine project is fed by a device that was previously used to turn lights on with the sunset.
The other things I used for this project were, a big flat piece of wood to mount everything on, and a bunch of solid state relays that I got for cheap at so I could control the individual lights with a microcontroller (optional but cool).
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Speaking of which, does anyone know how to make neon signs? Can someone make a glass-blowing instructable?"
Try out EL-WireEL-Wire :)
pretty good idea, i might do this once i have the resources
As an aside, I found an alarm clock that uses chimes, cathedral bells or other sounds to wake you up. Also, it does so relatively quietly at first and increases in volume over maybe 15 seconds.
But I do like your method much more.