Electro mech system to be added to existing advent calendar. 24 doors, 1 opening each day with light. Electronic design/hardware to activate very small actuator for door and light?
24 doors - if you used micro servos, the project would need to be as big as a cutting board.
24 lights - this could require only one pin to light all 24 lights
Each day - this would need an RTC (real time clock) with a battery.
Power supply... battery would need to be the size of an e-bike battery, so probably a small wall-transformer.
Arduino - a Nano would work.
A good option might be tiny spring-return push-pull solenoids.
Are you wanting to just buy stuff or are you willing to build stuff? Will your doors have hinges? Will your doors have latches that need to be unlatched?
Expecting to have to buy and build electro/mech hardware. Christmas advent calendar has hinged doors. Other designs have spring loaded doors. Actuator could push door open and light turns on.
Nano has 22 dig input/outputs: would a Arduino Due with 54 dig input/outputs be needed for 24 doors?
You can use shift registers (74HC595) or I/O expanders (many) off the Nano to gain more I/O for the addressable LEDs.
Added suggestion: Add a "candle" effect to the addressable LEDs (simple random or more true-to-candle code)
My suggestion would be to find solenoids that the metal moving part can be removed and replace by a magnet. The door could be held closed by the magnet, but be opened by spring when the solenoid magnet was neutralized by the solenoid electro magnet. That way no current would be necessary to keep the door closed or latched or noise produced by a solenoid movement.
Infineon Smart advent calendar uses hand made electromagnets but docs don’t say if it is to lock doors or to unlock and repel doors. No response from Infineon as to POC. Mechanism for opening doors using servo aileron hardware is posing some issues. I will investigate solenoid suggestion. Thank you
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.