I solved exactly that puzzle in one of the Escape Rooms I visited few years ago. I remember that the rest of my crew was surprised that a fan cooling us down was actually a part of the riddle. Nice one!
It is strange to me that the time for which the LED is turned on depends on the delayMicroseconds() function, and the time for which the LED is turned off is controlled by the delay() function. Something is not right if we assume that both functions took the same "refreshRate" argument. The difference is 1000 times.
Nice! That looks even easy enough for me though! I'm now a subscriber! Could you pls tell me how big of an resistor do you use between the Mosfet? and what kind of Mosfet :D Do you may have a parts needed list?
Hi Alistair, I'm a moving image artist currently in the process of building a phenakistiscope. I wanted to ask you some questions about this variable speed strobe you've made if you've got the time, it appears to be the solution to my problem!
Wow!!! Now we are talking! Propellers is my favorite thing! Good job! I am wondering if this led you are using needs cooling just in case it is left blinking for a long time. I know that some led chips require a cooler due to the excessive heat.
Using the same numeric value for the delayMicroseconds of the on time and for the delay of the off time (the pause) you get a 1/1000 duty cycle. When the flash is very short, the light seems to be less to the eye. For the mosfet, you can use a logic level IRLZ44N from Aliexpress.
Hello Alistair I tried this with just a simple 5V white LED and our home fan but it didn't work, the letters wasn't visible This might be the fan is going to fast or the LED is to low? Also thank you very much for your video, much love from Algeria
Hi! Did you try in a dark room so that the LED was the only source of light? Did you try adjusting the strobe speed slowly all the way from one extreme to the other?
I wonder if Pro Mini timing is different due to the processor having a different clock speed? Either that or your fan rotates significantly faster than mine, but glad you got it working anyway!
@@PlayfulTechnology Great video and super simple solution! I once did the same thing, but way more complicated (code). Btw, its the same with my Nano. I have to use delay. Either my nano is to slow, or I just don't notice the "off" period. I am not really sure if Microseconds is correct at all. That is pretty damn fast. At least in your video it looks like you can clearly notice the difference between on and off. I doubt that the human eye and brain would notice 500 microsecond duty cycles. But that could also be due the camera and the framerate. It would be very interesting to know whats going on here.
Forget what I wrote :-D It also works with microseconds. But I still think its way to fast. For Testing I used a PC Fan with 1200rpm. Thats 200rp/sec and 1rp/20ms. That means its already by 20 times out of the range of the max 100 microseconds provided in the code. Also you don't really need to use the refresh rate twice in the code. I get way better results by setting a fixed "on" time of 2-5ms and then use the variable refreshrate for the off period. That short and fixed on time creates a nice strobe effect. You could eaven go one step more and use a delay((refreshRate)-(2ms)) or whatever time you used for on. That way your whole cycle will be as long as the refreshrate which means, you could do some math with the refreshrate and serialprint it or show it on a display to print out the rpm of the fan or whatever you track with it.
I solved exactly that puzzle in one of the Escape Rooms I visited few years ago. I remember that the rest of my crew was surprised that a fan cooling us down was actually a part of the riddle. Nice one!
Amazing explanations ! Really helpful ! Thanks a lot :)
Can i have the exact reference of the mosfet you're using ?
I thought running the Nano on 12v causes issues if you have other devices connected, which use 5v.
Another great idea Alistair, thanks for making and sharing your ideas!
It is strange to me that the time for which the LED is turned on depends on the delayMicroseconds() function, and the time for which the LED is turned off is controlled by the delay() function. Something is not right if we assume that both functions took the same "refreshRate" argument. The difference is 1000 times.
Nice! That looks even easy enough for me though! I'm now a subscriber! Could you pls tell me how big of an resistor do you use between the Mosfet? and what kind of Mosfet :D
Do you may have a parts needed list?
Hi Alistair, I'm a moving image artist currently in the process of building a phenakistiscope. I wanted to ask you some questions about this variable speed strobe you've made if you've got the time, it appears to be the solution to my problem!
Hello, Im also creating a zoetrope and I will be making this. Did you find a solution?
i was searching the strobe control with arduino
Wow!!! Now we are talking! Propellers is my favorite thing! Good job! I am wondering if this led you are using needs cooling just in case it is left blinking for a long time. I know that some led chips require a cooler due to the excessive heat.
Cool and simple idea 👍 It would be nice to know the value of the potentiometer and which model is the mosfet 😅😄 keep it up!
Hi I was just wondering what the value of the transistor you are using is and how you connect the potentiometer and power supply
Which MOSFET did you use? Please tell me ASAP.
Hello sir, code is not working for me please help..
Which mosfet is used
Would never have thought of this. Excellent idea for hiding of clues
this is not working properly, When strobe is maximum light brightness is decrees. can you help me for how to make it professional. or any diagram.
Using the same numeric value for the delayMicroseconds of the on time and for the delay of the off time (the pause) you get a 1/1000 duty cycle. When the flash is very short, the light seems to be less to the eye.
For the mosfet, you can use a logic level IRLZ44N from Aliexpress.
VALUES???
Hello Alistair I tried this with just a simple 5V white LED and our home fan but it didn't work, the letters wasn't visible
This might be the fan is going to fast or the LED is to low?
Also thank you very much for your video, much love from Algeria
Hi! Did you try in a dark room so that the LED was the only source of light? Did you try adjusting the strobe speed slowly all the way from one extreme to the other?
Maybe it was because I was using a Pro Mini, but I had to change the delayMicroSeconds to just delay to get it to work, but mine works great!
I wonder if Pro Mini timing is different due to the processor having a different clock speed? Either that or your fan rotates significantly faster than mine, but glad you got it working anyway!
@@PlayfulTechnology Great video and super simple solution! I once did the same thing, but way more complicated (code). Btw, its the same with my Nano. I have to use delay. Either my nano is to slow, or I just don't notice the "off" period. I am not really sure if Microseconds is correct at all. That is pretty damn fast. At least in your video it looks like you can clearly notice the difference between on and off. I doubt that the human eye and brain would notice 500 microsecond duty cycles. But that could also be due the camera and the framerate. It would be very interesting to know whats going on here.
Forget what I wrote :-D It also works with microseconds. But I still think its way to fast. For Testing I used a PC Fan with 1200rpm. Thats 200rp/sec and 1rp/20ms. That means its already by 20 times out of the range of the max 100 microseconds provided in the code. Also you don't really need to use the refresh rate twice in the code. I get way better results by setting a fixed "on" time of 2-5ms and then use the variable refreshrate for the off period. That short and fixed on time creates a nice strobe effect. You could eaven go one step more and use a delay((refreshRate)-(2ms)) or whatever time you used for on. That way your whole cycle will be as long as the refreshrate which means, you could do some math with the refreshrate and serialprint it or show it on a display to print out the rpm of the fan or whatever you track with it.
@@noobsalsowinsometimes8350 Try microseconds for the on time and regular delay for the off time, It works this way too!
@@route-249 Cool, I will give it a try and check out what looks better.