Travis McGee
Active Member
Hay every one i'm working on a project that calls for an electrical gauge or dial and i'm wanting to make the needle fluctuate any advice would be awesome. the project is a suit of dieselpunk armor i hope that helps
gauge special effects
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Travis McGee
Active Member
Travis McGee
Active Member
i don't have it yet just spit balling and brain storming ideas at the moment but yes you can hook a battery to it but what i want is to have the needle fluctuate back and forth or side to side
One thing I noticed with mine is that it's really heavy. Definitely looks cool but might be too heavy if it's added to some armor.
If you utilize arduino you might be able to control surges in voltage/wattage to have it move. I know there are really small arduino boards that could work.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If you utilize arduino you might be able to control surges in voltage/wattage to have it move. I know there are really small arduino boards that could work.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Daegurth
New Member
Nothing you do with Arduino will affect that gauge, if that's the exact one you're planning on using. As the dial says, it's a 0-400A ammeter incremented in, I guess, 20A intervals (those lines are weird!). You'd have to route an Arduino PWM pin out through a couple of increasingly beefy MOSFETS to amplify that signal, and have a huge battery bank to run it.
Better idea; gut it, take a 0-5V voltmeter apart and install that under the same fascia, then run it with a simple random number Arduino sketch. Another alternative would be to connect a servo directly to the base of the needle, but that's going to use a lot more power than simply maintaining an open circuit (or near-open-circuit, across a couple megaohm voltage divider) potential.
If you haven't bought it yet, look for low voltage voltmeters, not high current ammeters! You can always customise a needle and background to be more grungy, just need the mechanism.
Better idea; gut it, take a 0-5V voltmeter apart and install that under the same fascia, then run it with a simple random number Arduino sketch. Another alternative would be to connect a servo directly to the base of the needle, but that's going to use a lot more power than simply maintaining an open circuit (or near-open-circuit, across a couple megaohm voltage divider) potential.
If you haven't bought it yet, look for low voltage voltmeters, not high current ammeters! You can always customise a needle and background to be more grungy, just need the mechanism.
Since it is for a costume, you can go old school and make it really simple. Gut the whole thing and make the needle free swinging. Then add a weight to the bottom end of the needle like a pendulum. The movement of you walking around and moving your torso will make the needle wiggle around. Once you get the weight right it should move all over the place. If it moves too much just add more weight or friction to the pivot. Bada bing, bada boom!
Travis McGee
Active Member
thank you for the advice man it helps a lot.
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well the gauge would be in a back pack/ coms pack style device or facade
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that sounds like a good idea how ever i want to be able to make it affect or look like it's affecting a radio type of back pack set up
propmaster2000
Sr Member
Hey Travis, many times a meter like that will use a large value external or internal resistive shunt to limit the amperage
to the small meter movement.
You may be able to open the meter and apply a very small DC voltage directly across the coil, by passing the shunt,
to make it move.
You can use Arduino to do this or a 555 timer IC connected to a 4017 counter and 10 random value resisters.
Be very careful as the meter movement is fragile. It won't take much voltage to "peg the needle".
.
to the small meter movement.
You may be able to open the meter and apply a very small DC voltage directly across the coil, by passing the shunt,
to make it move.
You can use Arduino to do this or a 555 timer IC connected to a 4017 counter and 10 random value resisters.
Be very careful as the meter movement is fragile. It won't take much voltage to "peg the needle".
.
Last edited:
Daegurth
New Member
On second thoughts, this might be the better option, if you can find ex-industrial stuff cheaper than "science" stuff. More fiddly, probably, and not necessarily a guarantee, but might be cheap enough to warrant at least an attempt or two.
I was gonna suggest the 555 and latch, but realistically these days, just random-driving the PWM output of a postage-stamp-size Arduino is probably gonna be the easier option. Probably available to freely copy somewhere off the internet, even.
propmaster2000
Sr Member
Old school way: A 555 timer (clock) gives a stead pulse which can be adjusted by an external pot.
The output of the 555 would feed the input of the 4017 counter giving 1 of 10 outputs in sequence.
Different value resisters can be put on the 10 individual outputs, then all tied together on one end,
providing varying voltage amount through the meter coil to ground.
Or if the output of the 4017 is negative, then tie the other end of the meter high (positive).
If you know anything about creating a sketch for Arduino, that would of course be your best bet however.
.
The output of the 555 would feed the input of the 4017 counter giving 1 of 10 outputs in sequence.
Different value resisters can be put on the 10 individual outputs, then all tied together on one end,
providing varying voltage amount through the meter coil to ground.
Or if the output of the 4017 is negative, then tie the other end of the meter high (positive).
If you know anything about creating a sketch for Arduino, that would of course be your best bet however.
.
Travis McGee
Active Member
sadly i don't know any electrical work or sketch writing. How ever i will be taking a class on how to make a script/ sketch
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