Andon Light Project Box

thingiverse

The purpose of this Andon light is to signal to others outside your room whether or not they have permission to enter. The necessary components for this project are: 4 Toggle switches 3 9V Battery Clip Connectors 4 24V Indicator Lights (Red, Green, Yellow, and White) Some wire A scrap piece of wood A project box that can accommodate all the items I used a stack light from work, which was discarded due to a faulty siren. There is a link in the description for all these parts. The total cost of this project is $30. To assemble this project, you will need: A soldering iron A hot glue gun A drill Some clamps A pair of pliers Optionally, a label maker or equivalent This project should take approximately 1 hour to complete. Be cautious when drilling holes into the project box and avoid holding it with your bare hands. I used 3M VHB double-sided foam tape to mount this to my door. You can also drill holes through the back of it for direct mounting if you prefer. Some issues I encountered: I did not use enough 9V batteries to power the indicator lights, which resulted in them being underpowered. I recommend using 3 9V batteries to power 24V indicator lights. I was impatient when wiring up the toggle switches and connected them backwards. This issue was easily resolved by swapping the wires back around. Some things I would change about this project: I would like to have a cover for the 9V batteries, so they are not visible. The current design makes it look like a suspicious device. To address this, you could hot glue the battery connectors inside a slotted cutout, allowing easy access to the batteries. With that in mind, I do not want to put them directly inside the box, as it would require opening it every time you need to replace the batteries. Some other ideas for enhancing this project: Connecting these lights to an Arduino could add more control. With the added Arduino and possibly a Wi-Fi adapter, you could have it wirelessly activated with inputs from another device. You could connect this to a Raspberry Pi and have it activate when specific software is running or in a different state. Instead of toggle switches, you could use a 5-way switch. There are plenty of ways to enhance this project and make it your own! If you are inspired by this project, please share your creation in the forum. There is a link to the write-up on this project right here: http://forum.electreak.com/topic/7-andon-light/