You know it, in the winter time it is hard to get up, because it is dark outside and your body just won’t wake up in the middle of the night. So you can buy an alarm-clock that wakes you up with light. These devices are not as expensive as few years ago, but most of them look really ugly.
On the other hand, most of the time it is also dark when you come home from work. So the great sunset is also gone. Wintertime seems sad, isn't it?
But not for the readers of this instructable. It explains you how to build a combined sunrise and sunset-lamp from a picaxe microcontroller, some LEDs and a few other parts.
The LEDs might cost you 5-10 Euros depending on the quality and the other parts should not make more than 20 Euros. So with less than 30 Euros you can build something really helpful and nice.
And this instructable will not only explain you how to rebuild this, but also show you how to modify it to your individual preferences.
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step 1Things we need
You need these things:o 12V or 24V power-supplyo 1 Picaxe 18M (or any other microcontroller) from http:www.rev-ed.co.uk/picaxe/o A socket for a 3.5mm ph…
step 2The circuit-layout
The ULN2803A is a darlington-array, consisting of 8 individual darlington-drivers with suitable resistors on the input-side so that you could directly connect the output fr…
step 3What is sunset looking like?
When you observe a real sunset you might recognize that the colour of the light is changing over time. From a bright white when sun is still over the horizon it changes to …
step 4Selecting the LEDs and calculating the resistors
Selecting the LEDs is the creative part of this instructable. So the following text is just a suggestions from me to you. Feel free to vary and change them, I will tell you…
step 5Adjusting the software
The picaxes are very easy programmable by some basic dialect from the vendor. The Editor and the software are free of charge. Of course one might also program this in assem…
step 6Installation in the bedroom
I placed my sunset-lamp on a small cupboard on one side of the room so that the light shines to the ceiling. By a timer clock I power up the lamp 20 minutes before the alar…
step 7Modifications
When replacing the toggle-switch by a pushbutton you must switch to the sunset-part by activating some interrupt in the program. To change the supply-voltage you must recal…
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http://www.instructables.com/id/A-sunrise-and-sunset-lamp-with-LEDs/