Artificial Sunrise Lamp

As a project for our electrical engineering (for mechanical engineers) class, and since Ottawa mornings can be extremely dark, me and my group decided to build a lamp that could simulate the sunrise during the morning to help with waking up. My modular gear reducers, which i posted about a month ago, were designed for, and played a huge role in, this project.

Once built, the lamp plugs into a wall timer, and as long as the control switch is open (optional part) the lamp begins turning on as soon as electricity is applied from the wall timer.

These kinds of lamps exist for purchase, but usually go for around $200. We spent around $70 total, but you could definitely build it for much less.

Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fHnanEdq4w

I think the pictures I took of it, and the wiring diagram in the pictures will provide a good overview of how to assemble it. There's not much hidden.

The motor gear is glued to the spur gear mount to allow the mount to be easily bolted to the motor shaft. Make sure that they are very well centred, as eccentricity can cause wobbling and noise.

A few things were changed from the given circuit diagram. We used a dimmer instead of two different sized resistors (don't run this with a dimmer for a long time, especially with abs, theoretically the motor will heat up and be dangerous, though we were careful and never had any problems, I never leave it running unattended). Also, we just used a standard dimmer in series with the lightbulb to control that as well, instead of a potentiometer.

As mentioned, we spent around $70 total, and that was with completely new parts. We even bought a new fan to salvage the motor from (it was cheaper than buying a motor by itself, and was AC so it didn't require any conversion). If you have any spare wires, motors, parts, etc. laying around your cost will be greatly reduced.