electricity

August insects /  by kelly heaton

Landscape painting and analog electronic soundscape (detail of work in-progress). August 2018

Landscape painting and analog electronic soundscape (detail of work in-progress). August 2018

I create the sound of a buzzy August insect using a 555 timer to drive a transistor astable multivibrator (to give timbre). Another slow astable multivibrator provides pulse input to a 555 timer in monostable configuration, that gives a pulse out to the base resistor of an astable multivibrator that sets the tempo. That's why the insect rattles for awhile and then stops (monostable 555 goes high - the rattle tempo is active low).

Prototyping Night Insects /  by kelly heaton

Here I am at my bench prototyping various analog electronic insects for my latest "electrolier" sculpture. The sounds are made using a combination of astable multivibrators (oscillators), some of which create the audio timber and others establish a chirp-like tempo. The speakers are custom piezo electric devices that I have physically modified to achieve different sound qualities, such as brighter versus muffled and close versus distant. Individuality is achieved by subtle variations in the electrical signal and the output device.

Piezo speaker housing /  by kelly heaton

Here's a prototype of a housing for a piezo speaker that I will actuate with analog electronic insect sounds. The shape of the housing and mechanical pressure on the piezo element will change the pitch as well as the volume. I made this housing by first laser cutting 1/4" acrylic and gluing the stacked rings to make a pyramidal-shaped buck — see images below. Note that there's a central hole all the way through the buck to aid the vacuum forming process. I’ve vacuum-formed .080” and .090" acrylic sheet over the buck (both work fine) and used a laser to cut the shapes out. My registration needs improvement, but you get the idea. The piezo element is mounted inside of the housing by a short length of plastic tube that I glued in place.

Below I show my process to cast the acrylic buck in plaster (using an alginate mold). I will use plaster, wood, or metal bucks in the future because acrylic deforms in the vacuum forming process. In either case, it is critical to use mold release.

Why am I doing this? Because when RadioShack went out of business, I could no longer buy the piezo speakers that I used for my insect sounds. I was forced to reverse engineer the part --which turned out to be a blessing because the sound of insects is heavily dependent upon the mechanics of speaker design (not just the electronics which drive the speaker). For a previous blog entry on this issue, link here or read about my project “Hacking Nature’s Musicians” on Hackaday.io

Animating butterflies /  by kelly heaton

Lately, I've been inspired by the little white butterflies flitting around my garden. I used analog electronics and LEDs to animate their flutter patterns. My circuit contains one master 555 timer / 4017 counter that sequences three butterfly (or moth) circuits. The individuals also have 555 timer / 4017 counter circuits that flash their LEDs in rapid sequence. I used transistor inverters on the master circuit to convert the active high logic of the 4017 to active low; and I connected these signals to clock enable (pin 13) of the 4017s on each of the butterflies. That's what causes their blinking to pause periodically. The random appearance of the blinking is thanks to capacitive coupling between signal lines, and without this the "flutter" effect is pretty boring. In other words, nature contains both order and chaos, where the order is by design (who's design? I have no idea) and the chaos happens through simple, recursive relationships that get complex fast.

Electronic moth assembly /  by kelly heaton

Making moths at my bench (May, 2018). The wings are dyed velvet that I embroidered with an old CNC machine (a 1982 refurbished Ultramatic at NovaLabs in Reston, VA). The bodies are circuit boards that I designed involving timers, counters, and multivibrators to sequence a trail of LEDs. The legs and antenna are laser cut plastic. The LEDs are multiplexed on a flexible circuit board that I modeled after symbols in the ancient temples of Mitla. All of these boards were manufactured by PCBWay in China. These photos were taken at my studio in Virginia.

Electrolier in progress /  by kelly heaton

Scenes from my studio (May 24, 2018). Dyed and embroidered velvet moth wings, custom analog electronics, laser cut acrylic, wire sculpture.

Cedar Sphinx Moth /  by kelly heaton

I continue to make moth wings for my latest Electrolier sculpture. Here is a Cedar Sphinx Moth with a circuit board body and embroidered velvet wings. Later, I will reveal the function of the circuitry and how the wires relate to the overall sculpture... but for now, pretty wings are what I have to offer.

Anatomy of an obsolete moth /  by kelly heaton

I've spent the past several days heat-bending laser cut acrylic into the shape of moth trails (more on that to come)... and at some point, it occurred to me that I have to redesign all of my electronic animals to accommodate a master controller with a custom remote control. I am fatigued by serious engineering and wanting to make more emotional art, but that might not happen for a while longer. Here is an obsolete moth circuit to express my mood.