Hi All. You may have seen my post in the trap section where I created the electronics for a trap using a raspberry pi pico. While that project was great fun, it’s done now! So what’s next? Gotta be the PKE!
Now, a lot of PKE’s I’ve seen seem to only have 3 settings. Wings\arms down, halfway up, or fully up. I have an idea to have a trigger on the handle which controls a potentiometer which will allow you to have the wings at any angle.
Here’s what I have so far
I think that’s the correct sequence for a GB1 meter. But I have a really daft question. Should the wing lights be green or yellow? I’m not exactly colourblind but I do have an issue with certain colours and I cannot for the life of me make these out!
It’s great to see more work on PKE electronics. I still have an old PKE casting lying around, so I’ll be interested in seeing how this goes for you and possibly following your example.
I still have some notes I jotted down from cylandprops.com (which seems to be gone now, but you can still find it through the wayback machine) when I was planning to build one. According to him, the light order was 3,5,7,4,1,6,2 in GB1 and 3,1,6,4,7,5,2 in GB2 (with lights numbered from the inside out).
People usually have the wings able to go from 0 to 45 to 90 degrees because that’s how the actual prop worked: using the finger-bridge switch on the right for 45 degrees and the one on the left for 90; but a fully controllable angle could be interesting.
As for your color question, I am red-green colorblind so I can’t help much, but I believe the prop just had clear plastic caps with incandescent bulbs behind them, so if you’re using LEDs yellow is probably closer.
Good luck with your project and let us know how it goes!
Thank you! I will definitely keep posting updates. I’ve ordered some clear looking, flat cap, yellow LED’s, and some green ones as well for the screen. Unfortunately they’ll not now be delivered til Jan! I have until then to decide how to do the sound. I’ve seen with circuitpython and a cheap audio board you can play mp3 files. I hooked all that up (already had the audio board) and it worked great. But it seems overkill for this project!
Always delighted to see some new options for PKE’s. There’s a real gap for accurate PKE electronics.
GhostGuy who offered the last PKE kit and incidentally still to this day a PKE kit that really holds up did have a mode on his kit that included the potentiometer being able to adjust the angle of the wings, but as said above…The true function of the prop was 45 or 90 degree.
As for the wings. They were incandescent bulbs installed behind acryllic pipe as a lens, so yellow would be best matching.
The Leds can also be just yellow LEDS…They will be behind the green screen…a similar led to the wings will probably give the best effect on the screen…Green leds behnd a green screen may not transfer as well if that makes sense.
Realistically the only coloured LEDS needed are for the Red/Yellow/Green under the screen that correspond and the red rectangle leds above the contact switches.
Well in a true Christmas miracle, the leds arrived yesterday! So I’ve started to print the meter itself now. My first prints have been a little problematic, but they’re getting there now! I have all the parts for the wings and have just made myself a wiring loom. I suspect printing will take a while as I want to amend the design quite a bit to accommodate my electronics as opposed to the original ones.
I confess, I’d forgotten all about the lights UNDER the screen! Do they come on in any particular fashion? IE do they swap or anything as the wings extend? That would be pretty easy to code.
Just had a look at a few built ones on line and there seems to be no real consensus. So I think that’s what I’m going to do! I’ll have the green led light when there’s little activity, switch to Amber as it gets faster, and then red when it’s at full pelt.
For the 3 lights just below the screen, the way it was documented by Cyland was that the red one in the middle is illuminated whenever the power is on. The other two are controlled by the switch just below them (which also controls the pattern of the screen lights): the yellow one on the left is illuminated whenever the switch is to the left and the green one on the right is illuminated whenever the switch is to the right.
There are also 2 more lights just above the finger-bridge switches on the face, which each illuminate whenever the associated finger-bridge switch below it (which also controls the wings) is bridged.
EDIT: Just saw your latest post, sounds like a good way to go that would make sense for how those lights might function in-universe.
Hi all. Not huge amounts of progress recently as I’ve been really struggling with the 3D prints. I’ve only managed to find one model that actually looks like the real meter and it’s a bit of a mess. As well as amending pieces for the electronics I’ve used, (which I fully expected to do and did with the Trap I made as well) I’ve also had to patch the 3d models where the mesh has failed. Had I printed them as is, I would have ended up with very weak pieces at best, or in many cases, with actual holes in!
But I’m finally getting somewhere now so here’s a couple of progress videos. I think it’s about as far as it can go now without another servo. (On order but the seller is away)
I think I’ll be following a bit in your footsteps with my build. I have a original Sears Roebuck Iona model coming this coming week that I’ll be drafting up a 3d model that’s actually accurate to the prop off of- then using a Raspberry Pi Pico as well.
For the screen ‘lights’ I was debating going with a small LCD screen to pull off the Afterlife screen appearance. Your project has been seriously inspirational, cheers
The potentiometer works just like I wanted. Allowing me to have the wings at any angle. There a little delay in the video which is purely down the the battery dying. It’s currently a 1200mah which lasts about an hour, but I have a 3600mah on order. Also the lights at the front I was able to set up so they go green-Amber-red as the danger increases!
Model issues aside, this was a really fun build! Now I’ve done a trap and a PKE Meter, I guess there’s only one thing left!
I’ve ordered some clear looking, flat cap, yellow LED’s, and some green ones as well for the screen. Unfortunately they’ll not now be delivered til Jan! I have until then to decide how to do the sound. I’ve seen with circuitpython and a cheap audio board you can play mp3 files. I hooked all that up (already had the audio board) and it worked great. But it seems overkill for this project!
