Infinitely adjustable and expandable timer switch

thingiverse

I needed a timer system to turn my Christmas lights on/off at various timings to achieve various effects. There were 12V motors, 12V LEDs, 5V Arduino's and LED strips and also store bought waterfall lights that needed to be controlled. I probably could have done this with one Arduino switching a number of relays but I'd run out of Arduino's and relays and the cost would be relatively high. I had some micro switches lying around and a small geared motor so I quickly designed and printed this thing to achieve the result. You can add or reduce the number of gears to achieve the overall speed (each gear adds 1:2 reduction) and the cam axel you can make as long as you want and have as many cams/switches as you want. Each cam you can adjust to any angle. I only needed cams that were 90deg and 180deg but simple enough to make different angle cams.Message my YT channel if you want me to design and upload a different angle cam. The gears are way bigger than needed but I had them already from other projects. They are that size too because they use standard skateboard bearings which are very cheap. (I bought a cheap Skateboard from Kmart, Australia that gave me all the bearings, bushes and washers I needed for this project.) The axels are 8mm threaded bar which you can get at the hardware store in at least 1m lengths. The geared motor I used was from Jaycar https://www.jaycar.com.au/70rpm-12vdc-reversible-gearhead-motor/p/YG2732 No doubt you can buy similar cheaper at Aliexpress/ebay etc. It has a 4mm shaft. You mount the motor on either the cam axel side or the idler gear side depending on what gear reduction you need. Note there is one large gear that fits a 8mm nut which is the drive gear for the cam axel. The other large gears just have press fit bearings on one side and the other side press fits the spacer that comes with a skateboard between the two bearings in each wheel. I used a big water proof box my neighbour chucked out to mount it all on as it needed to be weather tight on my roof but you can mount this on any flat surface like a piece of MDF etc. I bolted various arduinos and light controllers around the side. Its a bit of a mess as was done super quick...whole thing done under 2 days. The micro switches used were from https://www.altronics.com.au/p/s3262-51mm-lever-spdt-momentary-solder-tail-microswitch/ Much cheaper from Aliexpress If you need more than one pole switch you can just drive a relay (there is actually one hidden in the birds nest if you look closely as I had to split the 5V and signal lines on an LED strip) I printed all in PETG but PLA or anything would work. The bearing holders need 65mm M4 bolts to secure to the base. Quick video of it running at https://youtu.be/cSxOtxnuSSg See the overall effect at https://youtu.be/O--gYRMpxEA. (If you look closely when the Heli pumps the water the fire goes out...this is because my 5V supply is too weak and drops out due to driving som many LED's. Was no time to fix, film and submit for a comp entry)