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Wily Widget

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Restaurant Table Service Request Flasher

Wily was raking and bagging up some leaves from his back yard when he got a call from a restaurant owner in Lubbock Texas.  “Lubbock Louie’s” hamburgers was a popular place to eat in the west Texas town.  According to the owner, at times, the place could get quite busy and noisy.  The owner wanted to know if Wily had time to come up with a simple way to help his waiters know when someone at a table needed service.  Wily gave the request some thought and after some negotiations, he agreed to take on the project.

The owner thought some kind of flashing light would work.  A battery powered device, which when activated would flash some lights.  The lights needed to be bright enough to be seen from across the room.  They needed to turn themselves off and operate for some time before any batteries had to be replaced.

The circuit which Wily came up with is shown below. A single 3v lithium coin cell battery powers the device.  Four super bright green LEDs are flashed when the assembly was rotated into the “Requested Service” position. A tilt switch senses when the device is in that position.  A simple timer turns off the flasher after 3 minutes, if left in the flashing position. 

Schematic of table flasher

Table Flasher Prototype

View Table Flasher in Action

 


November 2010     Issue 13

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Envelope
Circuit
Diagnosis
Experimenter's
Corner
Good Idea
gone Badly
New Products Rants &
Raves
What the World
needs Now
Wily Widget
 


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