My granddaughters carousel

Dwayne

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Ok so I had origionally intended to cram the electronics into the centre of the carousel but once I took into account the limited ways I had of fabricating them I decided to make a base with enough room instead. So I broke out the wallpaper steamer and bent another circle out of wood
23.jpg
Again I probably should have made it thinner first.
The electronics mostly consist of the Arduino uno, shift registers and transistor array drivers which I wont bore you with the details of but they where all soldered to the boards like so:
21.jpg
And again I ended up with a mess of wiring to sort out to feed the lights, motor and music
20.jpg
This picture shows a stage where I had intended to make the carousel battery operated but that was ditched in the end for an external power pack that plugs into the carousel due to the power requirements of everything.
 

Dwayne

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So after this was all wired together and the few bugs where ironed out I came to the decision that the motor and gearbox from the cordles screwdriver would be almost impossible to run the carousel at the required speed this video shows it running as slow as I could get it without stalling and as you can see its far too fast so a new motor and gearbox was ordered.
Skipping a bunch of boring tweaks to programming etc I got close to finishing and needed to add a skirt to prevent my granddaughter getting her hand skewered by the bottom of the hanger as they went up and down
24.jpg
and all that was left was the tent canopy for the top of it which I dont seem to have any pictures for but its a plastic ring with some red and white fabric sewed onto it and thats the end of the build.
So all thats left is a link to the finished product Right here.
 

monica

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What a fabulous build and gift ,and also very interesting well done, ;)
 

boatman

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WELL as i said Dwayne thats way beyond me on the eletronics i thought i had enough eletronics what will go into my tiger but nothing like you are useing
VERY WELL DONE SIR
chris an jen ps my wife jen had a god look at how you made it an she like me was amazed well done
 

Dwayne

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Thank you Chris and Jen I am pleased you like it. My next project is a waltzer for my eldest grandson which is already underway and I will start a new thread for that one but obviousley the progress will be much slower. Having said that however I have much more machinery to help me with this one like mill, cnc router/laser and a 3d printer so progress should be much quicker than the carousel.
 

JR

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Wow Dwayne thats some build, brilliant work allround. As soon as I saw the electronics I thought Chris will be over the moon.
I was when I read you streamed the base. well done Sir.
 

Tim Marlow

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Fantastic work Dwayne. The engineering involved is complex, but you‘ve shown you are more than capable of working through it And getting a great result. Bring on the Waltzer......
 

JR

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Don't know what TV area your all in but last night there was a very short segment about the sale of a hand built fair ground. Truly some great work, according to the auctioneers there was a bidding war and the whole lot went for £ 4000.
 

boatman

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Wow Dwayne thats some build, brilliant work allround. As soon as I saw the electronics I thought Chris will be over the moon.
I was when I read you streamed the base. well done Sir.
YEA John i was pleased to see all the eletronics but havin a good look i realisied this eletronics is way over my head so each to his own on that but this carousel
is a work of a geninus very well done Dwayne an as Tim has said Bring on the Waltzer......
chris
 
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Dwayne

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Don't know what TV area your all in but last night there was a very short segment about the sale of a hand built fair ground. Truly some great work, according to the auctioneers there was a bidding war and the whole lot went for £ 4000.
I didn't see it unfortunatly, will have to look it up online.
 

JR

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I didn't see it unfortunatly, will have to look it up online.
Yes please do Dwayne, there must be a report of the auction in some group.
 
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