Electronics for Artists: Adding Light, Motion, and Sound to Your Artwork

210 Pages·2015·14.98 MB·English

by  Simon Quellen Field

E L E C T R O NI C S
F O R A R T I S T S
Adding Light, Motion,
and Sound to Your
Artwork
SIMON QUELLEN FIELD
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E L E C T R O N I C S
F O R A R T I S T S
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E L E C T R O NI C S
F O R A R T I S T S
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To Kathleen and Patrick
© 2015 by Simon Quellen Field
All rights reserved
Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 978-1-61373-014-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Field, Simon (Simon Quellen)
Electronics for artists : adding light, motion, and sound to your artwork / Simon
Quellen Field.
pages cm
Includes index.
Summary: “With today’s modern technology—LEDs, servomotors, motion sensors,
speakers, and more—artwork can incorporate elements of light, sound, and motion for
dramatic effects. Author and educator Simon Quellen Field has developed a primer for
creative individuals looking for new ways to express themselves though electronically
enhanced art”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-61373-014-0 (pbk.)
1. Art and electronics. 2. Art—Technique. I. Title.
N72.E53F54 2015
621.38102'47—dc23
2014036109
Cover and interior design: Andrew Brozyna, AJB Design Inc.
Cover image: Shutterstock
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................1
1 CREATING LIGHT ........................................................................3
Color Codes ..........................................................................................13
PROJECT: Electric Flowers ...................................................................15
2 CONTROLLING ELECTRICAL CURRENT .................................21
How Bright Is That? ..............................................................................27
Resistors in Parallel .............................................................................29
3 FLASHING, DIMMING, AND OSCILLATING ............................31
PROJECT: Build a Slow Switch .............................................................34
PROJECT: Flashing LEDs with an Integrated Circuit ...........................38
PROJECT: A More Efficient Light Dimmer ...........................................45
4 CREATING MOTION AND SOUND ............................................51
PROJECT: Controlling a Servomotor ...................................................54
Beeps and Squeaks ..............................................................................57
5 COMPUTER-CONTROLLED LEDS ............................................59
Tools for Programming ........................................................................60
Your First Program ...............................................................................64
Numbers and Constants ......................................................................65
Ports .....................................................................................................68
Patterns ................................................................................................72
Dimming ...............................................................................................78
Controlling 120-Volt Lamps .................................................................83
PROJECT: Metronome ..........................................................................87
Serial Control of 14 Dimmable LEDs ...................................................88
PROJECT: Randomly Twinkling LEDs ..................................................92
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6 COMPUTER-CONTROLLED MOTORS ......................................97
More Power ...........................................................................................99
Controlling Servomotors ...................................................................104
Controlling Stepper Motors ...............................................................107
PROJECT: Making Music with Your Computer ..................................114
PROJECT: Making the Computer Speak ............................................117
7 SENSING THE WORLD ...........................................................125
Using LEDs as Light Sensors ............................................................128
Proximity Switch ................................................................................132
Sonar ...................................................................................................134
Piezoelectric Tap Sensor ....................................................................137
PROJECT: Cecil, a Sessile Robot ........................................................140
PROJECT: Rover, a Simple Wheeled Robot .......................................142
8 COMMUNICATION ...................................................................145
Buttons ...............................................................................................146
An LCD Text Display ...........................................................................149
Communicating Between a LaunchPad
and Another MSP430 Chip ...........................................................153
Synchronous Communication ............................................................159
Bluetooth ............................................................................................164
Infrared ................................................................................................168
9 PROGRAMMING ......................................................................177
Data Types ..........................................................................................178
Constants ............................................................................................179
Assignment .........................................................................................180
Expressions ........................................................................................180
Control Flow .......................................................................................183
Library Functions ...............................................................................184
Slightly More Complex Issues............................................................184
INDEX .......................................................................................191
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INTRODUCTION
T
his book is written for artists who want to add light, motion, behavior, or intel-
ligence to their projects. The art might be sculpture that moves, an image that
controls its own lighting, an artisan lamp, or a work that responds to the viewer
or its environment interactively.
This is not a book “for dummies.” However, it assumes that the artist has been
educated in art, not science, math, or engineering, and has no prior knowledge
of electronics at the level of detail required for building electronic projects. I will
do the math for you—a scientific calculator can do any remaining arithmetic. I
also will explain why things work, not just how they work or how to build them.
Knowing why something works will help you remember how to make it work.
There is a rule I quote so often that my friends have named it Simon’s law:
Nothing is simple. However, everything can be broken down into pieces that
you already know. Each piece then seems simple. I will break down electron-
ics into pieces that you can follow easily. Putting them all back together into a
cohesive whole, you will eventually come to think of electronics as something
you have mastered, like driving a car, painting a portrait, or planting a garden.
None of these things are simple, but they are composed of smaller tasks you have
already learned.
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1
CREATING LIGHT
M
ost of what an artist needs to know about electronics is very simple. There
may be a lot of little things to play with, but each component is easy to
understand.
Start with the light-emitting diode, called an LED for short. You put electricity
through it, and it lights up. That seems pretty simple.
Like all electronics, LEDs can seem a lot less simple if you don’t know their
basic rules.
An LED has two wires coming out of it. If you connect one wire to the posi-
tive side of a battery, and the other side to the negative side of the battery, you
have a 50 percent chance it will light up. If it doesn’t light up, turn the battery
around and it will.
The first rule of LEDs is the diode part of the name at work: a diode only
allows electricity to go through it in one direction.
The tiny little button-cell battery in the photo above is just strong enough to
light the LED. What would happen if you connected the LED to the battery in
a car, or to a 9-volt battery? That would not be a good idea. At best, the LED
would make a little pop sound and become a dark-emitting diode, which we
will call a DED.
The second rule of LEDs: they can only handle a certain amount of electricity.
Electricity is just moving electrons. As electrons move through a conductor
such as a wire or an LED, they bump into the atoms in the conductor, causing
the conductor to heat up. The temperature rises, but as the temperature becomes
higher than that of the surroundings, more of the heat is lost to the environ-
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