FranLab Scrounge Build: Light Pops! (Cause, Why Not??)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Parts from a failed 2005 product come back to life for a scrounge build for FranLab.
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you did foresee a trend. The colored led ropes lights are in vogue. I use them as bias lights for my monitors, and a rope behind my headboard! SO DOPE! They are SUPER cheap now. And even have adhesive backings and marks showing where to cut so you can trim them to length, remote controlled. Its a hell of a product, not gonna lie. I LOVE them. lovely vibrant colors and very bright even with the cheap ones. Really liven up a space, and bias lights are great for eye strain. i keep mine on "teal" atm.
I bought 2 ten foot ropes for 5 dollars a piece at Walmart. We are living in the FUTURE!!!!!!
I've always liked cool lighting effects.
Looks like something right out of the 60's - groovy!
that glowing cilinder could be sold as the coolest volume knob ever. You might still have something in your hands Fran.
That Popsicle light is straight up first series Star Trek!! Love it
Except you can be pretty damn certain that not a single L.E.D. was _ever_ used for _any_ kind of illumination on Star Trek - The Original Series!
L.E.D.s just weren't available for such purposes back then, they were still very much in their infancy. Also, early visible types came only in red and were quite dim. Given the limited budget, I doubt that much in the way of tube-based displays, or even fluorescent lighting, was used. Probably near 100% incandescent bulbs employed to brighten the "futuristic" Star Trek.
I really like how organic it looks. I would have made it perfectly straight and aligned and then been disappointed and remade it like this.
Nobody ever saw Blue and Red flashing lights and felt "Calm"....
Well, if you're in the process of being murdered, blue and red flashing lights may make you feel _calmer!_ (Unless you live in the USA, where the police are almost as likely to shoot the victim, than shoot the perpetrator.)
Keep it on the dashboard ;)
@@anhedonianepiphany5588 In my state they use high intensity, bright as the sun blue LED lights.
whoa that came out so much nicer then I had imagined in my heads.
Cool project! Personally I prefer the slow changing variety of these LEDs for meditation rather than the ones you have there. Next time I suggest reusing an old plastic blister package. We all get tons of them from the various things we buy. One of those vacuum formed clear plastic blisters would work great for something like this. That way you could just leave the mold on it and not have to worry about it sticking to anything. I built something similar for my mother as she has several crystal figurines and wanted a way to display them. So I set to work with an older PIC microcontroller and a not so standard RGBY LED. It was meant to be a pixel in a large display but worked well for the project. From there all I had to do was to wire the various elements to the PICs digital pins through dropping resistors because it had a common cathode and the brightness didn't match between elements being directly driven from the IC. Because of that I used the PIC in 5v mode and some resistors to make the output match better and since it's a good idea to never drive an LED at it's full voltage potential anyway it made sense.
I added some tactile switches for reset, mode, and power though the power switch only puts the PIC into a null sort of standby state by simply using a digitalWrite LOW command associated with that button which is a loop of it's own so it doesn't go back into the color cycling mode like it would if reset was pressed. Having built a small wooden box with a candle mirror for them they look quite nice. As a sort of side note, if you scratch the reflective finish off the back of a candle mirror to make a window for the LED/s they work great for this application...
Great way to remove hot glue is isopropyl alcohol. It releases immediately. I use it all the time. the only problematic surface is raw wood.
Another two ways being a hot air station or freezer spray.
Try to get something to stick to silicone when you need it!
Try to get hot glue to stick to something when you need it!
If it's an ice cube tray or a non-food item, rather than something for baking, it could have been made out of the much cheaper and pretty sticky TPU rather than silicone, which would explain both of these otherwise unlikely occurrences.
Fran, I love how you set up the simplest of jigs to cut all the parts, or to solder them all to the same length, or even the tape to hold all those parts in place whilst you flip the board. I'll be linking to this from my facebook page. I'd love to see a video where you show some of these "small manufacturing" hacks and jigs.
Lol, as if you need a jig to cut resistors to length. What's worse is that the LEDs didn't even end up all the same height, which was supposed to be the point of the exercise. Right?
I love the background music with the build! I know the developer feeling! In 1975 I was trying to come up with a layout to wirewrap a computer prototype using the RCA CDP1802 microprocessor and in 1976 Popular electronics came out with their series of articles on building the CDP1802 Elf! Well, I built it because they had already solved some of my input issues and practiced some of my code with it. Shortly after the Apple I came out and then an explosion in the years to come with several processors....oh well
Are you kidding? That background music is so bloody annoying. Especially after you've heard it a few times. It feels like I'm being tortured by being stuck in an elevator with the lights on 24/7 and that music not letting me get to sleep. I'd rather die.
love when you post... always fun ❤👍
Use rubbing alcohol to release hot glue. Works great!
The final version of your PhotonCandy looked really good I think. Light Pop was a success too
And... it was WAY cooler than I thought it would be.
Fran, you know, I'm just now seeing this. But, I see a whole different market for something like this.
Just loved the video.Gives me some ideas for some lighting.Made up to find someone who loves the old way of doing electronics the same as me as i cant stand this plug and play way of doing electronics they use these days as there was nothing wrong with a good old fashioned soldering iron and an idea.Just a shame parts are getting harder to get hold of.Thanks Fran...
I'd buy one of these, would be like a portable visualiser when linked to music on mobile, trippy man.
hey if yall love fran please be a pateron for her cause she really needs it! the lab is expensive and she has about 1/4 of the funds she needs!
I built a stack of prototype white LED torches about 6 months before they were ubiquitous. Back when high brightness 5mm LEDs were $5 each.
Encoded in the random light sequence are the universe mysteries - 🌌
Fran, now that's an LED of a Different color!
This kind of project would make an excellent children's night light. Turn the dial to set the length of time it runs. Could come in plain black/brown box, fairy princess, wizard's stars, or 50's 'far out man'. :D
I like it.
Very nice! I have been after something similar. I have a milking bucket with a clear lid. And have been searching for something with a rechargeable battery pack as I don't want to put a hole in the bucket.
I really admire women who like electronics like me. Subscribed.
jun c i think its very suprising for mans if they see woman who like soldering
I think she's the 'technical' man's dream girl!
I was shocked - in a good way - to come across this channel, and I'm very much surprised that Fran hasn't a great many more subscribers. Her videos are appealing to a diverse group, from young electronic hobbyists to experienced engineers.
Nic Jones thats right. Im an electronics hobbiest and i can say that im the only one that does soldering ON OUR SCHOOL (1000 students) and never. never in my 13 year old life there was ANY girl that is interested in electronics.
WELL FUCK
(Sorry for my bad english. Im a german)
+Basti !, Nothing wrong with your English, dude! (just change "on our school" to "in our school", then it's pretty much perfect). I find people coming from Germanic languages do better with English than most others. English is a stupid nonsensical language anyway. :D
Nic Jones where do you come from
Rest in Peace Radio shack, We will miss you forever!
Nice 👍 led lights keep up the good work my friend
Kind of reminded me of the Aurora borealis (Northern lights) which are a complex phenomenon with light being released from nitrogen molecules stimulated by collisions with charged particles and in some sense I sort of think of the voltage & current feeds as like those collisions as the various leds cycle through their repertoire. Nice!
Fran,
Very cool project!
May I suggest spraying the mold with PAM or something similar to prevent sticking.
Such a pretty and cool idea! I love the use of the different resistor values to get the shimmering effect, very clever.
That's a really nice look for LED's. By the way, I've heard you have to be really careful if you try to design a product or invent something these days. If you do research on it before you patent it, search engines or hackers can get that information, and before you know it, someone else has the product made before you do. It's a shame too because that gives a really nice effect!
Yeah that's the same reason why I don't like these new cloud-based 3D modelling and 3D-printer slicer software that are starting to show up. I don't trust cloud-based _anything_ for the simple reason you have no control or even idea _who_ has access to the models and files you create. You're having to put a _lot_ of trust in a bunch of complete strangers, who often aren't even in the same country as you (so may not have the same protective laws etc), and you just have to _hope_ that they're honest people who won't access your stuff without your permission or knowledge. Plus there's the added issue that, since they're subscription-based services, if you can't keep up payments you lose access to not only the software, but also any files/models you've already created - whilst _they_ still get access and may not delete them despite claims and promises that they will if requested. I just don't have enough faith in these companies or people in general to want to deal with anything cloud-based.
I was at first temped to skip forward during the LED assembly sequence at the beginning, but your soundtrack was too enjoyable. 🙂 Reminded me a bit of some of Chris Isaak's music. I also enjoyed the final light pop effect - kinda looks like some of the cool Technicolor-rendered optical effects on the original "Star Trek".
Dont know why but the music reminded me of Ty The Tasmanian Tiger 2
Hey Fran! How's it going? Fine, I hope.
If you plan on doing this again -- it's very nice and I strongly recommend it -- may I humbly suggest you use some silicone oil in your molds?
As an avid crafter I can tell you that the reason you had to break the mold is because silicone adheres and destroys silicone. If you'd have put down a non silicone "barrier" or release agent before putting the hot glue into the mold it would have come out.
* edit *
Or what someone said earlier, using rubbing alcohol after.
True.
There isn't likely to be any silicone in the hot melt glue - it would increase flexibility but drastically limit adhesion, and there are lots of alternatives to increase flexibility similarly without compromising adhesion, plus it's not the cheapest. Does it actually say on the mould what it is, what temperature range it's for at least? It could be TPU instead of silicone.
+Siana Gearz, I agree with your line of reasoning. It would warrant further investigation to determine exactly what was happening here.
Wow ... times have been a-changin' when 2003 LEDs are already considered new old stock, a term normally reserved for Nixie tubes, TIL311s, and other suchlike gems ...
Cool! Your own personal Aurora Borealis generator.
I made a few items just like that that fitted inside my wife's fine flower like pottery, also usb powered. SNAP
warming up the silicone might have helped (or coating the inside of it with vasceline first). you could make metal case for the circuit board bit out of brushed tin and put printed 80s scifi text 'MindMeld 3000'. a great retro scifi prop!
Fran, do you have a 3D printer yet ? With clear or "natural" filament you can make all sorts of cool enclosures for lighting projects, imagination the only limit.
And they're cheap now. starting around 100 bucks.
A number of times I've had people steal my ideas before I had a chance to think of them.
It looks cool! I want one.
You gotta get your hands on some 2 part resin for this.
I would think the glue stick "pop" would start to melt internally due to the heat from the LED if left on for a while. Also, cooking spray makes a good mold release (if sprayed BEFORE you add the GLUE) lol nice video Fran
I like the light pop even more than the photon candy.
Could try to sell them on Etsy. I did something similar with crystals that had holes drilled in them. I got them at a rock shop. I think they were rejects from a company that made fountains or lights. I used neopixel RGB leds to put inside them. They made nice garden pieces.
Matthew, this can be _extremely_ dangerous, as such pretty luminous crystals, placed in gardens, are known to attract lost or nomadic Gnomes. Contrary to popular belief, and unlike our stolid concrete facsimiles of them, these Gnomes will _bite,_ steal your children, and hold rowdy night-long beer-fuelled orgies.
Best of luck!
That looks like something straight out of a Star Trek Original Series episode! Very mod 1960's psychodelic! There should be a market for something like this. Make it about 4 feet long and people can hang it on their wall? Or make a 2D version the size of a wall picture?
You've got a great sense of humor! Great story, those Chinese right? Who isn't buying from them these days.... Btw, i would love to have this device, would be a great one off. A real FranLab Photon Candy light flickery colour changing thingy! Dont know about the soothing effect in the workspace though, but in my window sill it might make a great conversation piece! :-)
Often i post my comment before hitting the like button. Or forgetting to do so, which doesn't mean i don't like the video, it's just me. Are there more people like me? I'm diying to know.....
maybe lay a few glue sticks in the mold, then microwave them for a minute or two until liquid, then press the LEDs in. Then maybe hit the bottom of the mold with some canned air turned upside down to quick freeze it and then maybe it will be easier to remove while still warm?
Good to know that hot glue sticks so well to silicon. ;-)
those are awesome!
Just spray into the mold some pam Fran - it will act as a release agent.
In fiberglass work they use Polyvinyl alcohol as a mold release. I'm wondering if that would have helped, or perhaps using a little paraffin wax, or some kind of light oil?
That was rather pretty when they were going like Christmas lights!
I wonder if you could have oiled the mold for a better release of the plastic? It's cool none the less.
ps - I have a candle that looks very similar to your product where the light show happens as soon as you light it and stops as soon as you blow it out. I was wondering how they did that. Does the capacitance of the wick change when the candle is burning?
Thank you!
Today i learned i should grease the mold before making Light Pops
That is a great idea and a good project. yes the Chinese will bet you every time.
How about some photoresistors that would change drop as they are activated by the LEDs? That would make each light like a cellular automaton! Responding to its environment...!
Cool! I would buy one! :)
BTW to get the mold off use a heat gun /hair dryer and it will release easy.
You may be able to avoid the perfboard my soldering everything together via a jig and potting the whole thing.
Fran showing the true colors...a photophile! Need a tall plastic tube with a train of lights. That would make a chaotic iterative recursion modeler!!
what about knobs that light up. you could pot LEDs in the knobs on guitars. and amps. and what not. I'm not in to that stuff. but I never seen it. just need a way to control it and power it. I know you can get it going!
Spray or coat the mold with veg. oil. (?) Will that mess up the outer appeal of the glue? Just a thought.
I am a big fan of whimsy. This project is definitely whimsical. Good going, Fran. I wonder if mold release might have spared you the necessity of stripping the mold off by cutting it.
Thanks for sharing😀👍
My first thought when I saw the prototypes was "night light".
Tye-Dyecicle
YES ! Fran is gangsta AF !
Hey kids, remember to always shuffle your diodes before any project!
I like your cardboard jig and the 'what's on the table' to hold the board while you solder. Nice video Fran.
Unless the item is boutique and based around a brand identity like Frantone, you'll get outdone by the Chinese every time. :(
You might as well respond with reference to new home construction or financial instruments... the original comment was clearly regarding electronics, not cars. But FWIW, cars could absolutely be manufactured in China to meet North American standards but the cost savings would not be attractive. The association between Chinese manufacturing and low quality (in terms of quality control or in terms of design) is largely because the products we see coming from China were designed intentionally to be cheap, not because Chinese manufacturers are incapable of producing quality product.
Chinese cars have issues but they're no longer shit. China has introduced C-NCAP in 2006 which was back then rudimentary, with the goal of ramping up the regulations for newly introduced vehicle models to catch up to ENCAP (European) regulations by 2020, and it appears they have been well on course - the actual collision scenarios match European since 2012 and some mandatory features keep getting carried over every year or two. Chinese vehicles by Cherry/Qoros intended for European Union market recently had very high crash safety ratings as tested by independent German labs according to ENCAP regulations.
It is of course to be noted that some old models were produced for a long time or are still being produced - automotive engineering is excruciatingly slow. The catastrophic crash tests of Chinese vehicles that widely became known in mid-early 2010s are from models that have been around since mid 2000s or earlier. I think the timing is not coincidental - with the tightening of regulations in China, they tried to offload the nastier ones to South America, Russia, whoever would take them, and thus the Western world got some glimpses of things that were not even good enough for China any longer, while normally what happens in Chins stays in China, it's a bit of a world onto itself. But then you think back what murderous tin cans European cars were before 1996 for the most part, and it puts it right into perspective - China was 20 years behind not long ago but the speed at which they catch up is staggering.
Something these companies struggle with, without support of major Western chemical companies, is material quality. In China it's less of a problem, as labour is inexpensive and so are rubber and plastic replacement parts made from domestic material, but you couldn't introduce something like that onto a Western market, you have to retool everything down to material suppliers, and they probably are making their life hard as neither of the chemical companies wants to alienate their existing automotive customers. Still, owing to material quality, Western brand cars manufactured by local subsidiaries in China with imported materials, in particular by Groupe PSA and VW, are a major success in China. The Chinese steel seems to have caught up in quality though.
As to powertrain, well it's majorly licensed Toyota engines from the 80ies that received some minor updates. The foundation was originally so well engineered that they're really resilient and easy to keep running.
I think the problem in this instance is that the light was likely actually already a product in Taiwan or Japan or somewhere before Fran got her hands on the LEDs, she was merely oblivious to it due to language and cultural barriers, and it was just a matter of months till it pours over. I think i must have bought a colour changing egg-shaped thing in early 2000s at a novelty store for 5€, powered by button cells and having an integrated colour changing LED, and from there it's not a huge leap towards USB novelty items. I don't think somebody would just make these strange LEDs for no reason, most highly integrated semiconductor devices like this are developed to make existing products cheaper, that would originally consist for example from discrete LEDs and a Holtek micro or an ULA ASIC.
So glue sticks get stuck to silicone molds? That’s funky. I didn’t think anything stuck to silicone
Fran if you want to investigate something electronicallly complex and interesting check out the line of Biotracer turntables from Sony. I recommend the PS X75...mainly because I own it. However, they did produce a few different models of this type of turntable at various price points. They were mostly produced in the early to mid 80's and were designed to eliminate many tonearm, cartridge issues.
The PS-X75 was indeed a thing of beauty, but I always longed to acquire one of the 'tangential' units like the PS-X800. Of course, these were very complex machines, and maintenance is an issue. I was a vinyl addict, but was forced to relent when science, and my ears, knew it had been surpassed.
^ Techmoan
Far Out! Love it!
Great psychedelic effect!
Why the nitrile gloves?
Hi Bruce! I don't know but I can think of a few reasons why I would be gloved up for mundane tasks: if it's something done on the side between other tasks, or to protect the work from oils from the hands - even though it's not winter (on her side of the planet) and dry hand season with lotions et al. Could be the personal routine too, done out of habit so you never forget them when gloves are recommended.
The lead wires on resistors, LEDs, caps. etc can be sharp and will irritate if you're handling a lot of them - think selecting pins from a heap .
A little bit of hot air would make that come off easy
Now if you could put a mic on it and get it to respond to sound waves, that would be awesome!
0p
Cool, I want one :-)
Fran again, some more or still? Make up my mind.(8-) Gloves, huh? Wazzammadda, doncha wanna risk yer
finger prints on the work? Devil made me type that(8-).
Tell ya what, I'm gonna have to get one of those "3rd hand" jobbies. I'm getting tired of not having enough
hands to hold this so I can solder that...it's gettin' real old.
It would be neat to see something a body could link to Blue Tooth some way so that music could
determine the color play...digital light organ(8-). Looks like ya shoulda buttered the mold, huh Kid?(8-)
That reminds me. I got about 2/3 of a can of acrylic goop and enough hardner out in the shop for it.
I otter try "pourin" something up with that....BEFORE it lays around and gets stale. Thanks for the
acid trip, Fran(8-). Devil made me type tha too.
Thanks Fran - inventive, educational and entertaining as always. Such a pity about the 'photon candy', it was a nice idea.
I had thought this might have been mon librepenseur,
an attempt at spintronics or holographic computing...
or perhaps an ionocraft...
still, it was pleasantly surprising to see a steiner-newtonian inspired metronome,
which not only told the time of day, though also could be used as a musical scale for that...
Steiner-Newtonian makes sense for 'particular patterns in music etc',
such as neuromorphic or concantenation eh...
je prends conge.
I was really excited about making a bluetooth controlled mains light. I still use my prototype all the time, and just out of spite I'll never buy a chinese one.
Some silicone spray probably would have made a decent mold release.
Good idea, but don't feel bad, probably many of us have been beaten to market. Next time you may be first. I designed a product, I'm sure first of it's kind with large market potential.
I sold a few but could not raise the $250K licensing fee to get NBA and NFL access. Then, in 2000, had not heard of GoFundMe etc. In about 2010 I saw an idea similar to mine funded on Sharktank for $750K. Oh Well, on to the next thing.
Hi Fran! Love your projects! I love LEDs Too!! I like to wipe a little white lithium grease in the moulds, it handles the heat then slides right out. Keep up the build videos, they are superb!
Reminds me of one of those '70s color organs. Hint, hint...
SpiritRider1100 easily done with a controller, some WS2812LEDs, a mic, hay presto light organ!
Calming Not for Me, but Waring Light, Could be a Better Option..Or a New Type of Back up Light..
coating with wd 40 in the mold might help release it easier
That does look great! Very nice inspiration for some blinky things. I guess this is why people put mold release also on their silicon molds. But it did work out at the end. :)
I'd buy it, if made in the USA!
It probably wasn't necessary to add the dropper resistors because the RC oscillators in the LEDs all operate at slightly different rates anyway.
You're so creative! Love the vids.
you made a lightsickle :D
I wonder if it would have been any better had you used silicone instead of hot glue,, just a thought!
What happens when it melts?