Comments on: Synchronizing Fireflies

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 11 May 2012 08:30:11 +0000

Hi Samhain,
I thought of an SMD version too, but there is one problem to solve.
You need the light to go from the LED to the photo transistor. If you are using standard LEDs (120° or 160°) soldered to the board and the photo transistor soldered to the board as well, then you will need some kind of reflective cover over all fireflies. Otherwise one firefly will not be able to “see” others.
Maybe soldering the photo transistor with long leads (1cm-1.5cm) and then bent it over, so it’s facing down.

If you are not placing the receiver beneath the LED, you will have a preferred direction, e.g. if you place the LED left of the receiver, the receiver will always see the firefly to it’s right easier than the one on it’s left.

If you build some, I would be great it you share some pictures.

Cheers,
Alex

By: Samhain_HF

Samhain_HF — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:32:26 +0000

Hi Alex,
I’m going to make a SMD version, Is this necessary
to place sfh3310 (or LDR in previous) under LED?
also SMD LEDs are strongly bright, whats you opinion about it?

By: Iva

Iva — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 08:44:42 +0000

Thank you, thank you for opening my eyes on this! I just saw the actual synchronized fireflies and then spent days pondering how they do it. It seems to be much simpler than one would think. To me, beautiful simple things make life even more amazing. Iva

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:09:12 +0000

Hi Alex, they are alive!! work beautifully

Thanks for this Instructable, the best…

Eric

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:10:04 +0000

Hi Eric,
please double check if you burned the fuses correctly.
Cheers,
Alex

By: Eric

Eric — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 21:09:04 +0000

Probably stupid for every sharp minded people here but the 4 fire flies i have made seems to be
on low speed, they synch all right but even the 5 HELLO WORLD seem to be clocked at 1000ms(1s) so can I speed up the cycle?

Any help from however would be greatly apreciated

DO I mess with Make fike, c file then hex? and reburn the chip?

By: Synchronizing Fireflies NG | electronic circuit project

Synchronizing Fireflies NG | electronic circuit project — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:47:28 +0000

[...] is a remake of the fireflies which I did a year ago. I was always fascinated by the emergence of patterns. One I like most is [...]

By: Electronics-Lab.com Blog » Blog Archive » Synchronizing Fireflies NG

Electronics-Lab.com Blog » Blog Archive » Synchronizing Fireflies NG — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:00:44 +0000

[...] is a remake of the fireflies which I did a year ago. I was always fascinated by the emergence of patterns. One I like most is [...]

By: Heraclitean Fire — Links

Heraclitean Fire — Links — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:36:14 +0000

[...] Tinkerlog Â» Blog Archive Â» Synchronizing Fireflies via MAKE ‘… the synchronization of hundreds or thousands of fireflies. First they flash randomly but after some time and influencing each other, they flash in sync. This circuit simulates fireflies with small microcontrollers.’ (tags: LEDs fireflies electronics ingenious) daily links | 29 March 2008 at 9:34 am | RSS « ‘Breaking the Rules’ at the British Library [...]

By: Robert Louis Carpenter

Robert Louis Carpenter — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 05:47:05 +0000

Have you tried introducing error into the system once it has synchronized? Maybe something like shooting a laser pointer at the paper briefly….just a flash to introduce error into the system. I also wonder what would happen if you reprogrammed one of them to blink regularly (ie. no sync programming) but started much later. I would assume that they would all re-sync to the phase of the source that doesn’t shift.

It also makes me wonder what would happen if a corrupt wave was introduced…a light that doesn’t blink at the same speed. If it were the correct speed you might be able to get some cool patterns once it stabilized….I am thinking something like a ripple effect might appear.