Arduino Spirograph

 

The guys over at Whiskey Tango Hotel have made a Arduino Spirograph that will provide hours of viewing enjoyment. An Arduino controls the action, 3 motors spin mirrors and a laser is bounced from one to the other while they are spinning to produce a cool spinning effect. If you are interested in making one you can grab the code from the project page.

“For the project you will need a few items:

• Arduino (I used the Nano pictured above; $9USD shipped)
• Laser Diode (check eBay for red ones that sell for ~$1.50USD shipped)
• Three DC fans or motors (I rescued three 24VDC instrument cooling fans)
• Three small mirrors and double sided tape for each fan center
• Three 10K pots (used to control the fan speed independently)
• Three LEDs and three 330 ohm resistors
• AC/DC Power adaptor (I rescued an 18VDC wall wart)
• LM7805 voltage regulator to tame the output from the wall wart to 5VDC
• L78L33 voltage regulator (provides a 3.3VDC for the laser diode)
• TC4469 Quad Motor Driver to provide controlled power to the fans”