DIY Toys: Charlie I

A little while back, I wrote a post about a toy my Uncle Steve made for me when I was little (DIY Toys: Uncle Steve's Gift). Well, I never actually told my Uncle how much that little gadget meant to me until a few years ago, when I wrote him a letter explaining it all, and also included my own, slightly updated version of the toy.

 

The picture at the top of this post is just a graphic representation of it, made in Microsoft Word, using surprisingly versatile drawing tools. If only it had been as easy to export the picture as it was to draw it, I might actually come to like Microsoft. But I digress.

 

You might ask why I didn't just post a picture of it. Well, if I had known that I'd be blogging about it years later, I would have done exactly that. But, alas, I wasn't looking that far into the future!

 

Anyway, my updated version of the gadget was largely identical to the original: switch-controlled lamps, with a few small differences:

• there are now three switches and lamps instead of one.
• the enclosure is plastic; the cover is removable.
• the batteries are replaceable (2 ‘C’ cells).
• the lamps are LEDs (red, yellow, and green).
• the LEDs are still controlled by toggle switches, but I added red, yellow, and green safety covers to indicate which switch controlled which LED (and to increase the ‘cool’ factor, of course!).

As you might expect, there's really nothing to it, electrically - just batteries, switches, LEDs, and current-limiting resistors.

 

The LEDs are T-1 3/4, diffused, and nothing special - they came out of my spare parts bin. The resistors are 1/4W and appropriately sized for the LEDs I used. You may want a different value depending on the types you use, and possibly even different values for each color, since an LED's forward voltage if often color-dependent. I opted for simplicity, using the same value for all of the LEDs, while making sure the current through each LED was below 20mA.

The switches are all standard-size toggles that mount in a 1/2" hole. I got the toggle safety covers from Marlin P. Jones & Associates (www.mpja.com). Until recently, the covers were available in a rainbow of colors: red, yellow, green, blue, purple, clear, black, and chrome. As of this writing, it looks like they've cut it down to red, yellow, clear, and black. That makes me sad. I haven't found an alternate source, but I'll pass it on if I do!

When I showed the finished product to my wife, Tammy, she thought it was cool (she’s nice like that) and asked what it did. Well, it doesn’t do anything; that’s not the point. My son Nick, ever the button-pusher, understood immediately. As soon as I handed it to him, he just started flipping switches. I don’t know the rated number of operations for those toggles, but he probably reduced the useful lifetime of the gadget long before my Uncle ever got it!

 

I had no idea what my Uncle might actually do with it. It was a solid paperweight, for sure. Maybe he could leave it on the counter in his shop, and see if the customers played with it. Never trust anyone who doesn’t know how to play! Or maybe it would keep their kids amused while the adults did business. As it turned out, there was a much better use for it.

 

My Uncle Steve and Aunt Joyce have two kids, my cousins, Andy and Libby. Both are married; Libby and her husband Dean have two kids, Charlotte and Grace, but at the time I made it, there was only Charlotte. Well, as I understand it, Charlotte was over visiting one day, and my Uncle gave her the gadget to play with. She loved it! Charlotte "adopted" the toy I made, and she and her little friends have put a lot of miles on it since.

Libby sent me this picture of Charlotte playing with it. I've started calling the gadget Charlie I for three reasons:

• Charlotte turned out to be the ultimate end-user, not my Uncle Steve.
• I hardly ever call her Charlotte; she's Charlie to me.
• There's a Charlie II in the works - actually almost complete - and I hope to be writing about it soon. If she likes it half as much as the original, I'll consider it a success!

Who knows? Maybe someday I'll get a letter from Charlotte telling me how much she loved her toy. And maybe she'll even make her own version of it for me in return. But if not, that's ok - just seeing her play is plenty good enough for me!



DIY Toys: Uncle Steve's Gift

A long time ago, my Uncle Steve made me a birthday present. When I say a long time, I mean maybe 40 years ago. I was little, maybe 5, maybe 8, I’m not sure. And I assume it was a birthday present because I remember playing with it outside in warm weather, and my birthday is in the middle of July.


The present was handmade, and simple enough: a pair of ‘D’ batteries, soldered together; a toggle switch; and an incandescent lamp with a cylindrical amber lens. These three items were wired together so the switch turned the lamp on and off. The whole thing was enclosed in a small cardboard box wrapped in black electrical tape. It couldn't have been simpler.

Today, I suppose you’d call such a thing a "Busy Box" or a “Do Nothing” box. That’s no insult; it's a class of gadgets whose primary purpose it to entertain and stimulate the imagination.

That it did.

That little box was anything I wanted it to be. It was a communicator from Star Trek, a walkie-talkie, a remote control for a rocket or a robot or whatever else I could imagine – and I could imagine a lot. It was a homing device, and a treasure detector, and a night light, too. Quite honestly, it was one of my favorite toys of all time. I was heartbroken when the batteries finally died, but I (clearly) never forgot it.

I have no idea where that most wonderful of toys ended up - probably in a landfill somewhere. What you see in the pictures is a replica I made just for this blog. There are a couple of differences:

• Though still wrapped in electrical tape, the enclosure is a plastic project box, not cardboard.
• The batteries are in a battery holder, not soldered together.
• The incandescent lamp has been replaced by a warm white LED (but I still managed to find an amber lamp holder, thanks to You-Do-It Electronics in Needham, MA!).

I decided to make a slightly updated version of the same toy, as a gift for Uncle Steve, but that's a whole different post. Stay tuned! In the meantime,

Beam me up, Scotty!!

About Uncle Steve

For as long as I can remember, my Uncle Steve has operated an Office Machine shop. When I was little, that meant typewriters and cash registers and a never-ending supply of gears and levers and other little mechanical bits and pieces. Then word processors began to move in, sometime in the 80s, I think, and not long thereafter, computers and printers.

My Uncle has had to stay abreast of technology as it pertained to office machines, just so he could stay in business and support his family. He's the guy that turned me on to Nuts & Volts magazine, for example. He also let me borrow his Heathkit Electronics Training Course materials & hardware way back before I could ever afford such a thing on my own.

As one of the only technically-inclined members of the family, he always encouraged me in my own geeky interests, and is one of the only adults I could talk to about such things that actually understood what I was talking about. For that, Uncle, I am eternally grateful!