Hi all,

I am an electrical engineering student currently undertaking a third year engineering design course. The project I am designing is an autonomous caving/mining headlight, detecting the environment’s ambient light to accordingly adjust the output light intensity and frequency. This will allow for hands-free operation, with the goals of saving power, increasing safety and convenience, as well as a more accurate colour reproduction of the dark environment. Some of the other features considered are the control characteristics of the light, type of light, weight distribution of the circuitry and a disable function to allow manual control of the light

At this stage I am trying to gather as much information as I can for the design. So far I am planning to use ~3 CREE XM-L/2 LEDs (possibly with multicolour LEDs), and simple optics with basic LDRs for light sensing. For the batteries, I will probably use 18650s or AAs, and a microcontroller to handle the logic of the dimming and colour variation. I am wondering if these are good choices; any feedback or ideas would be of great assistance.

Cheers
Floyd

A smart lamp, interesting.

Lozz.

Petzl do a semi-smart one, it dims down if it detects light shining at it...

http://www.petzl.com/en/outdoor/headlamp/nao 

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Something like this?

http://www.facewest.co.uk/Petzl-Nao.html?gclid=COzmmp6PkMACFQgYwwodClsAbw 


EDIT: sorry Simon, you beat me to it! :lol:

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hmmm...maybe I can ask them to temporarily remove it from their product line until my project is marked haha. Thanks fella's, that's a shame.

I bet theirs hasn't got modulated light voice communication built in.

Thinking caps on.

Lozz.

I bet theirs hasn't got modulated light voice communication built in.

Thinking caps on.

Lozz.

A voice controlled lamp?

I like that idea, imagine the fun of waiting until somebody is halfway down a mega sized pitch and shouting "lamp off" at them 😉

I wasn't meaning using voice to turn the lamp off, more communicating via a modulated visible light beam or even IR beam, voice, data etc, not sure what application there is in mine exploration/caving/mining environment etc.

Commonly referred to as VLC, it will be big business at some point.

Lozz.

When I built my mega lamp, I toyed with the idea of remote control.
The lamp has all of it's control circuits in the battery belt box, which is a hollowed out Oldham case. In order to switch between functions and to activate all LEDs into mega mode, you need to reach around to the battery pack top.
I thought it would be more convenient to use a car type key fob for mega beam.
When using for work or for somewhere like Cwmorthin, this would be quite useful.
Sadly, I didn't have room in the box for the circuit board.
The whole thing with fob was about 17 quid from RS, so easily affordable.

Voice control would be even better.....

I wasn't meaning using voice to turn the lamp off, more communicating via a modulated visible light beam or even IR beam, voice, data etc, not sure what application there is in mine exploration/caving/mining environment etc.

Commonly referred to as VLC, it will be big business at some point.

Lozz.

All our total station theodolites (Leica, Geotechnics etc) use VLC on the IR beam to allow voice comm between the control station and the work face. Useful when setting out rock bolts etc. "up a bit, left a bit, down a bit.....fire away!"
I suppose you could integrate it into a caplamp and all your colleagues could wear a receiver on their overalls and an earpiece in their helmet. All you would need to do is shine your lamp on them and speak. :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Come to that, it could be useful on a dark night when a group of you are spread all over a hillside trying to find an adit...

I wasn't meaning using voice to turn the lamp off, more communicating via a modulated visible light beam or even IR beam, voice, data etc, not sure what application there is in mine exploration/caving/mining environment etc.

Commonly referred to as VLC, it will be big business at some point.

Lozz.

All our total station theodolites (Leica, Geotechnics etc) use VLC on the IR beam to allow voice comm between the control station and the work face. Useful when setting out rock bolts etc. "up a bit, left a bit, down a bit.....fire away!"
I suppose you could integrate it into a caplamp and all your colleagues could wear a receiver on their overalls and an earpiece in their helmet. All you would need to do is shine your lamp on them and speak. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Not VLC, but all the kit here in my office has got voice control "work you ******* *******" :lol:

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http://modulatedlight.org/ 

From an amature perspective.

Lozz.

Thanks for the link.

It does kind of make sense in an exploration sense; sound is so muffled underground if you could beam a message to somebody - assuming line of sight - it could be very useful indeed.

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So far as I am aware no license is required to operate in that part of the EM spectrum.

Lozz.

I've seen those used for survey control offshore, very useful for certain tasks because it takes you out of the commonly used channels.

Combine it with a small voice-actuated mike under the helmet peak and a small, light earpiece and that would be quite a handy thing.

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In fact, if we get it right, we can sit outside an entrance and send in an expendable member of the team and just watch and listen on our monitors?

You are welcome to look at my circuit design for ideas:
http://www.cowdery.org.uk/gloworm.php 

Chris.

One has to ask the question "Why Bother"?

I want a light that goes ON/OFF and brightness that can be set by myself not automatically deciding what amount of light I need.

The more complicated you make it, the more chance of it F$king up when you really need it NOT to!

(Just sayin, y'know before y'all flame me!!)

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Chris, I'm impressed with that schematic, nice and efficient considering what the remit was.

I found that the pictures of your schematic a bit blurred in your post in this thread so I found this, hope you don't mind:

http://www.mineinfo.co.uk/bbs/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=4722&start=1 

So for anyone who had the same problem as me trying to read the schematic in this thread then click on the above link then right click on the schematic and view image.

Lozz.