Illumicon Drawing Machine

[@johnd1432]

So beautiful! Thanks.

[@Showgirlable]

You had me at Illumicon! How much? Where was this in the Rave Scene of the 90s? We coulda used this in the CHILL ROOM! This is truly a work of ART! BEAUTIFUL!

[@wayneschmidt490]

Thank you for commenting! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Sadly, I no longer have the Illumicon. I converted it to the Mesmergraph, a drawing machine that draws in fine sand. Here's a video of it, if you're interested: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eaSYeKh8es-Nf8k&lc=Ugx15Gr-HMsF9m5-3T54AaABAg

[@christinaconroy231]

Hi! Love this! Seriously considering making one for myself!! Question for ya: I assume there’s a way to calculate the number of full rotations of the base that you need to compete a full pattern. Guessing isn’t really going to cut it with light painting of course. And given how long the exposures are I’d like to try to get it “right” the first try. Thanks!!

[@wayneschmidt490]

Unfortunately, calculating the number of rotations to estimate how long the exposure has to be is so difficult, particularly when multiple gears are used, that I defaulted to guessing at how long it might take, then taking test exposures to narrow it down. I seldom if ever got a perfect trace and had to clean the image up in photoshop to either extend the last trace to complete the pattern or edit it out if the trace overshot. Note that if you use your camera's noise reduction feature, exposure times may be doubled. On my Canon, it takes two images: the first one captures the trace and the second takes an image of the same duration but with the mirror closed so that any hot pixels are detected and eliminated. This results in much cleaner images, but if the required exposure for the trace is 30 minutes, then the camera will take a full hour because the noise sensing image also requires 30 minutes. That's a long time to wait for a single image that may not be worth anything. Good luck and thanks for the comment!

[@terrigelbaum8066]

Sir, I would like to email you about my TAULA sewing machine......it's about the bobbin.

[@wayneschmidt490]

I'm very sorry, but for security reasons I never give out my email address. I doubt I could help because I've never heard of a TAULA sewing machine. Or did you mean TULA? Either way, thank you for commenting!

[@terrigelbaum8066]

@@wayneschmidt490 I am sorry ,totally got you mixed up with another fellow..........my mistake. Please excuse me.

[@xavierlu5849]

2:57 why did it end up looking like That?

[@wayneschmidt490]

The relationships between all the gears and sliding arm are too complex for me to understand what's going on with many of the more complex traces. I can only guess that with the setup at 2:57, the position of the light on the arm was such that the lines it produced were so tightly crowded together that they overlapped enough to make a mess. Moving the light away from the center of the drawing g spaced the lines out enough to allow a pattern to appear. Many traces end up looking messy. Using mechanical drawing machines is many times a guessing game in trying to create an attractive trace. Sorry I couldn't give you a better answer. Thanks for the comment!

[@BillizMuzic]

So where can we purchase one?

[@wayneschmidt490]

Ouch! Sorry. This was a one-off machine I built myself just for fun. The idea of posting a video about it was to provide entertainment and give people ideas of what can be done as a DIY project. If I had to do it again, I'd use it as an excuse to buy a 3D printer and print all the gears. They'd run much smoother and be a lot easier to make than hand cutting them on a scroll saw. Actually, because the illumicon does it's thing in a pitch black room, it's not much good as a viewing experience. For that, the mesmergraph (kzbin.info/www/bejne/hp3dlIaNqKuSfLM) is much better. Thanks for commenting!

[@wayneschmidt490]

Thank you for commenting! The 150-toothed outer gear was 18-inches in diameter, the 86 toothed gear was around 10 inches in diameter, the 74 was 9-inches, the 60 was 7-inches and the 36 was 4-inches in diameter. There are several free gear pattern generators on-line where you entire the desired number of teeth and diameter and they create printable template that can be glued to a piece of wood for cutting. I made mine using a motorized scroll saw so the teeth needed to be around half an inch tall and wide to suit the limited accuracy of hand cutting. If you have a 3D printer you should be able to make the gears smaller and the machine more compact. If you build one, you will capture cleaner images if you select long exposure noise reduction. This takes two images: one with the shutter open then a second with it closed. Then it subtracts all the noise from the second from the first. It doubles the amount of time to capture a trace but saves a lot of time cleaning up the image manually. If you like drawing machines, I have a whole playlist of the ones I've made. kzbin.info/aero/PLEnCVl0LWmYc1LnC4jbgEdQW7eeIDwilF The most interesting to watch is the mesmergraph. Thanks again for commenting!

[@wayneschmidt490]

Thank you for commenting! The 150-toothed outer gear was 18-inches in diameter, the 86 toothed gear was around 10 inches in diameter, the 74 was 9-inches, the 60 was 7-inches and the 36 was 4-inches in diameter. There are several free gear pattern generators on-line where you entire the desired number of teeth and diameter and they create printable template that can be glued to a piece of wood for cutting. I made mine using a motorized scroll saw so the teeth needed to be around half an inch tall and wide to suit the limited accuracy of hand cutting. If you have a 3D printer you should be able to make the gears smaller and the machine more compact. If you build one, you will capture cleaner images if you select long exposure noise reduction. This takes two images: one with the shutter open then a second with it closed. Then it subtracts all the noise from the second from the first. It doubles the amount of time to capture a trace but saves a lot of time cleaning up the image manually. If you like drawing machines, I have a whole playlist of the ones I've made. kzbin.info/aero/PLEnCVl0LWmYc1LnC4jbgEdQW7eeIDwilF The most interesting to watch is the mesmergraph. Thanks again for commenting!

[@wayneschmidt490]

The inner gears rotated on pins held to a metal sheet on the main central rotating gear with magnets. This let me move them around anywhere they were needed. You can see how the magnet pivots work 3 minutes into the following video about the mesmergraph: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJWzqmBjZrSBg8k