BB FANS

The animations to demonstrate the sequences ,click to view

Slow Motion



x4 Faster

Very good. It gives you a starting place.

The parts have started to arrive.
The Blue LEDs have arrived ,the Processor(s) have been dispatched.

I've also ordered some Green LEDs as I found another picture which showed the center LEDs as Green and not Blue.

Also there are pictures showing different patterns. For instance one picture shows Sequence 2 and 5 at the same time (the still from the first video with that pattern on the right as well as the left). Another shows the pattern in the still for the 2nd video on both the left and the right. And a third shows all LEDs on at the same time.

Guess I'm going to have to watch back a lot of BB to see what was used.

I'd expect different set-ups for

1. Diary room Empty ,BB available - Outer red on ,Green center on ?
2. Diary room Empty ,BB not Available - Red only ?
3. Button pressed - The knightrider type left to right , right to left sweep.
4. Button pressed - signal to enter the Diary room. Green only ,Red off ? Or maybe the one with Red on Center Green and next level Blue on ?
5. Diary room occupied - That could be the Green only LEDs.

Sounds like there is more to it than meets the eye!

At the start of BB4 as the housemates were going in it had the Red outer LEDs on plus the center Green LEDs.

Now an interesting thing, when during the 1st day in BB4 and the nominations Jon presses the button before entering the Diary room and the sequencies that it flashes are totally different to the video of the one on eBay.

It lights the middle section (Green + first ring of Blue) and then moves outwards with the two patterns in the stills for my videos but with both the left and right rides showing the patterns and then back in again. Now do this mean there are two or more ways it can react once pressed or does it mean that it was changed later ?

An example using a PIC processor by PICProjects on YouTube

I'm sure there are more patterns than the real thing and I'd say it's using either Bi-Colour or RGB (Tri-colour (Red ,Green ,Blue)) LEDs. Have looked through his website and there are lots of projects but nothing about his BB Eye inspirered project.

Possibly changed later I reckon.

I've now got the Green LEDs and the proccessors ,just waiting for the programmer to arrive.

I'm going to Email the creater or the eye project in the YouTube video and see if he will help with the source code as there's no point in reinventing the wheel if there's an easier way. His website has lots of examples from which I can get ideas and looking on the site's forum he seems quite helpful.

I'm going to continue rewatching BB to gleem examples of it in action and BB4 is ideal with Jon's usage of the Diary room .So there should plenty of examples.

Good idea. Let us know how you get on.

Well the one that Pete at PIC Projects made was a complicated creation with lots of features and was capable of operating a solinoid to unlock a door.

And rather than switching the LEDs in banks it looks like they were controlled in a Matrix style and were capable of being controlled via a serial port of a computer.

The original Source code isn't available but there are two projects on his site which could be adapted.

The first is just a sequencer for 12 LEDs and I only need 8 to emulate the pattern from BB4. Though there is a better 8 channel version which is more suited and can have patterns preset. And his source code as quite easy to follow. It's been years since I last played with PIC processors and the code in strucured similar to VisualBasic though it's closer to C which I've never used.

But making the LEDs do the pattern is easy. Adding the button(s) shouldn't be too hard as the detection of a button press could set a value in a variable which is checked each time before repeating the current sequence.

So I think three stages need to be available.

Standby - Red outer LEDs On ,Center Green On.
Button pressed waiting resonse - Sequence running.
Enter - Short sequence then Only Center Green On.

After that there might be a manual reset back to standby or a time delay. Originally it would have been a manual reset once the Diary Room was empty.

This will need a large push-to-make switch on the back of the LED board and the board will need a few posts fixed to it with springs to return it back to the start position. The post will have to pass through a back plate and fixed so they can't come out. On the front of the LED board there will have to be a metal plate which can be sprayed the correct colour. Actually I could use Perspex as I have some available.

The original plague in which it's mounted in and onto the wall etc looks like Bakelite but I'm thinking maybe wood would work ? And if I find someone who knows how to use a router then maybe the shaping could be made alot easier as shaping by hand would interesting at best

Here is my emulation written in Visual Basic 6 recorded on a phone.



The buttons from Left to right say "Ring" , "Enter" , "Exit".
Quality is poor .

Delays are 250mS apart from the one in the running sequence when the outer LEDs and the Center are lit which is 300mS. And the Enter sequence that holds the Blue for 1 Second before leaving the Green on.

This looks better with a Black background.



Sequence is based on BB4 not the one in the YouTube video of the one sold on eBay.

Yes the black background one looks good.

Anybody wanting to play can download the program for HERE

Note you need the VisualBasic 6 runtime files. Program has only been tested under XP and has passed the McAFee antivrus software. But use at you own risk.

VB6 files can be got from Microsoft HERE

Try it first as you might not need them. Also create a restore point before installing the files just in case.