Need help for son's halloween costume

[Ayeaux]

My son has decided to dress up as a traffic light for Halloween this year. Don't ask me why, because I have no idea.
What I am looking for is something I can purchase or easily assemble to allow for the three different colors to turn on and off sequentially along the front of his costume. It doesn't have to be LED, incan is just fine with some colored bulbs. A diffuser of some sort to make it look more like a large light would be nice as well. Maybe modify some of those round tap lights I've seen for several years?
The other criteria is that it can't be crazy expensive. If it gets too complicated or expensive, I'll just get some glow sticks.
Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[abvidledUK]

Look at these for ideas.

http://www.coolest-homemade-costumes.com/childrens-halloween-costumes.html

http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/costumes/a/blhalcosttraflt.htm

 

[TorchBoy]

So you really want a 3-way astable multivibrator circuit with its sequential switching set up to do one light on at a time (instead of the normal one light off at a time). Something very much like in the circuit in this PDF, in fact. You would then need to make up three arrays of coloured LEDs or light bulbs behind cellophane and drive them with transistor switching or something like that. Or use relays and have a cool clicking sound coming from your son's costume.

 

[LED_astray]

Not as geek friendly, but how about a three position switch that drives 3 bulbs (or emitters)? E.g. for LEDs, a simple circuit of 3 or 4 AA's and appropriately sized resistors would work.

 

[TorchBoy]

My son has decided to dress up as a traffic light for Halloween this year. Don't ask me why, because I have no idea.

I won't ask why, but how about "Will he still want to be a traffic light by the time Halloween rolls around?"

 

[mdocod]

When I was young- in elementary school, I built a "robot" costume out of cardboard boxes, silver spray paint, and flexible dryer hose...

I mounted 5mm LEDs all over it and had a battery pack and wire and duct tape running all over the place with a set of switches on the side of the box that I could reach and control. It was a pretty cheesy setup and it shorted on me a few times... but not bad for my age...

Anyways, the reason I bring it up is, at the time, I obviously was not "advanced" enough to be using ICs to control the LEDs, so I just used simple switches from RadioShack and controlled them manually... I had more understanding of electrical circuits than my parents in elementary school so I couldn't really go to them for help on that one

Doing something similar may be easier and cheaper, a few "push for on, release for off" type switches could be used. Might even be more FUN to be able to select which light is on at a particular time.

Here's some links to things you might want to use:

http://www.1000bulbs.com/6-Volt-G4-Base-Halogen-Light-Bulbs/8950/
http://www.1000bulbs.com/Halogen-Sockets/4564/
http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...r=1&kw=switch&origkw=switch&parentPage=search

stuff like that, some wire. some color filters, maybe some card-board box and paper mache.

SHould be a fun project....

could also be done all from radioshack using E-10 base bulb holders and some screw style flashlight bulbs. I can't seem to find a link to the battery holders that radioshack sells, but a 6 cell adapter should work with those 6V 5W 2000 hour bulbs, or a "6 cell" flashlight bulb and be bright enough to be seen well through a filter.

 

[Ayeaux]

So you really want a 3-way astable multivibrator circuit with its sequential switching set up to do one light on at a time (instead of the normal one light off at a time). Something very much like in the circuit in this PDF, in fact. You would then need to make up three arrays of coloured LEDs or light bulbs behind cellophane and drive them with transistor switching or something like that. Or use relays and have a cool clicking sound coming from your son's costume.

That's almost exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks!

I'll continue thinking about how to display the lights, as i don't think those led's would be bright enough. Some relays from radio shack, a battery pack, and a few light bulbs (radio shack also has 6v red, green and yellow bulbs), some sort of diffuser and I'm in business. This should be a good project to get my soldering skills up.

Thanks to everyone for their ideas. Keep them coming if you have any more.

 

[TorchBoy]

Light bulbs would be brighter, but DX's coloured 20 mm LEDs in red, yellow and green might make big arrays. It sounds like they're not very bright though.

 

[Ayeaux]

I found some LED tap lights at Wally World for pretty cheap (4 for $5.97) that are the right size. Some colored celophane behind the diffuser dome and they look perfect.

My next question is this. I've seen some kits for traffic lights and was wondering if they would put out enough to light up these tap lights. The tap lights have 3 leds and appear to have no other electronics inside, other than a switch. There could be a resistor under the circuit board holding the leds, but I haven't pulled it apart enough to see anything. They run on 2 AA batteries, and are voltage sensitive. 2 fully charged eneloops only got a faint glow. The included heavy duty batteries were plenty bright enough for my purposes. Energizer lithiums were much brighter. I measured 37ma from the battery compartment while they were on the heavy duty batteries.

Here's a few links of kits I've found thus far. (has to be US shipping. I couldn't find that option for your suggestion TorchBoy):
http://www.allspectrum.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=93

http://www.chaneyelectronics.com/products/led-flashers/c6810.htm

http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/FK156

I am hoping one these will drive the tap lights directly, eliminating the need for any relays and more batteries.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[TorchBoy]

I figured you'd be able to use the circuit diagram to get the parts locally, perhaps at Mouser (?) Electronics or somewhere like that. But those kits you've found look great.

When I read "tap lights" my first thought was what an American might call "faucet lights".

 

[Fusion]

Make sure you post pics of your project!

 

[Bones]

I noticed in a link provided by Alan B in this post, that SparkFun carries what they term a 'super bright' led, but only in red, green and blue it seems.

I'm also wondering if you notched an LED or two into the edge of a traffic light sized piece of that translucent or white plastic sheeting you see around, would it carry enough light to achieve your pupose.

An adaptation, if you will, of the lighting effect you see on LED enhanced write on menu boards.

 

[Ayeaux]

Just a quick update:

I have the lights i want to use for the actual traffic lights. They are some cheap tap lights from Wal-mart with three leds in them. I've already put some colored cellophane in them to get the right colors.

I ordered this kit http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=C6810 a few days ago and will try it out to see how bright the included leds are and if it will output enough to run the leds in the tap lights. I am hoping that something as simple as switching out a resistor at the led on the kit will get a little more output. 3v and 40ma doesn't seem like too much from this kind of kit.

I'm also wondering if you notched an LED or two into the edge of a traffic light sized piece of that translucent or white plastic sheeting you see around, would it carry enough light to achieve your pupose.

A good idea, but since I've found something off the shelf I will commit myself to get that to work. Worst case I'll use the leds included in the kit and wont need the colored cellophane. They might be dim, but it will also be dark outside anyway.

And yes, I plan to post some pics as I get a little further into the project.

Again, thanks for all the help.