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Touch lamps; a surprising finding! (Patreon)

Published:
2020-09-11 14:16:45
Imported:
2021-02

Content

Hellooooooo!

https://youtu.be/TbHBHhZOglw

I've got what I figured would be a pretty simple and straightforward video but which presented an opportunity for a lesson on internet literacy because not only is Google not being helpful here, but the real answer is actually quite surprising! Were it not for that discovery I'd probably have had this done a couple of days ago...

Thanks to Anachronistic_Tendencies for the topic suggestion! I'll be working on captions soon and am most likely going to do a wide release tomorrow.

Files

The touch lamp; a neat idea, and older than you'd think!

I think we really oughta make this fashionable again, don't you? Links and stuff! First, the patents! Aladdin's Fantastical Lamp; https://patents.google.com/patent/US2810066 Scott M Kunen's not-original patent; https://patents.google.com/patent/US4668877A/ Sylvania's Pushless Pushbutton; https://patents.google.com/patent/US2782308A/en And in case you want to peruse the datasheet of the modern chip, here's one place to do it; https://www.digchip.com/datasheets/parts/datasheet/798/TT6061A.php Here are the other links I usually put here; Technology Connextras (the second channel that stuff goes on sometimes): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClRwC5Vc8HrB6vGx6Ti-lhA Technology Connections on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TechConnectify The TC Subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/technologyconnections This channel is supported through viewer contribution on Patreon. Thanks to the generous support of people like you, Technology Connections has remained independent and possible. It's how I can make fun of products like these! If you'd like to join the amazing people who've pledged their support, check out the link below. Thank you for your consideration! https://www.patreon.com/technologyconnections And thanks to the following patrons! Hayden McAfee, Dan Maku, Mark Injerd, Paul Demers, Michael Sandler, Jacob Harrington, Clay , Jason Letchworth, Benjamin Deming, Thorbjörn Meyer, Eben , M1GEO , Michael Kaegler, Chrno , Colin Macdonald, Shlomi Borovitz, Krispin Miller, Jan Borcherding, Matthew Castellana, ., David , Jason Downs, Deviant Ollam, Dillan Weems, Eldrin_22 , Andrew Bogard, Cameron McCormick, Craig Albert, Brandon Ryan, Travis Geiselbrecht, Pedro Brito, Ryan Milke, Marko , splateagle , MaikSan , Timothy Miller, Jim Renney, Steve Lafferty, Joseph Mayfield, Noah Dobson, William Astle, John Plasket, Nathaniel Cole Alexander, Don Eitner, Adam Belebczuk, Matt , Karol Koziol, Matthew Krajnak, James Fuhrman, Mark Majewicz, Logan Shelts, Arcanox , Matt Beard, Sebastian Mellor, Hildabun, Steets , Matt, Joel Jauregui, James Alexander, Joon Shin, Calvin Walton, Jesse Crawford, Justin Tokke, Ryan Morash, Matt Towers, digit777 , Tee Jay, Delliardo , Eidorian , MsWhit , Jeremy Price, Lydia Saunders, Nishith Thakkar, Samuel Colburn, Raphael Wichary, C. Taylor, Evan Langlais, Andyface , Hugo Melchers, R Fisher, Sam Atkinson, PanicOpticon , Don Riesbeck, Craig Engbrecht, Marco Menendez, Nils Schneider, Rob Tapp, Sebastian Muñoz, Andrew Bedia, John Sanchez, Kenneth Dahle, Patrick Wolfensberger, datajerk , Jimmie Rodgers, Sean Bates, Dukey , Biff McKeldin, AFylH9X9ZZGKbxF , Martin Porcheron, Justin Baros, Stephen Turner, kara mccabe, Denzil Wilson, Thomas Daede, Travis Estell, Sean Levorse, David (chipgw), Patrick McCart, H.D. Gregg, Ariel Valenzuela, Julian Kaagman, Mark Wingerd, Antoine G, Antonio Juarez, Tobi , Splendid Gecko, Anicast , Steven Salerno, Kevin Tangney, Nicolae Berbece, Andrew Sebastian, Daniel A.A. Pelsmaeker, Joar Wandborg, Walter Huf, Chester Plemany, Keith , Allen Singer, Chris Gardner, Nick Daniels, Michael Dragone, Diego Egido, Mark Provan, Zarko Kuvalja, Kevin Ragsdale, Karsten Müller-Bier, Ron Painter, Joe Turner, Shaun Faloon, Andrew Collings, Robin Monks, EndoliteMatrix , Ragnar Jensen, Neale Genereux, Alexander Swaim, Aaron Hile, Austin Nunn, Kevin Chevalier, Declan M Martin, Kyoto Fox, Andrew Crawley, Eric Laska, OG-Biebs , Nathaniel Thompson, Paul Giroux, Daniel Ziegler, Chris Hodapp, Wearwolf , Greg Morin, Scott Hutcheson, Ted Kern, Ellen Murray, Paul John Sandoval, Tony Cook, Ben Cook-Feltz, dim85 , Sam Lentz, Lane Robert, MPc , Daniel Prows, Christopher Lucas, Marcin Żyła, Michael Thomas, thesgtbossman, Vincent Larson, Bryan Boettcher, Vladimir Solomatin, paustin , Ian Baltutis, MetricConversion , AwkwardHuggs , Howard Jackson, Elizabeth Sullivan-Burton, Charlie Hart, Andrew Johnson, Robin Capper, Turaiel Rylis, Niklas Lehmacher, FL0M0 , Ryan Newson, Steve Russell, Eric Anderson, Jurassic Jacob, Johann Goergen, Jonathan Benjamin, Steve Toye, Aging Wheels, Bevis King, Bill Danbury, Tony Toon, DA Blair, Mykie Gunderson, Daniel Westermann-Clark, Alex Rokholm (PapaQ), Matthew Niederberger, Adwardian , KJ Skinner, Ouros , Eric Cardwell, C222 , Ken Klavonic, Fr. Darryl Millette, Michael Valant, Rasmus Larsen, Bence Skorka, Stelly , TKB , ZirconiumX , Tímo , Derek Ledbetter, Séamus , Tom Powell, geekiskhan , Adrien Sauvestre, nikolaevarius , Nebelwerfer Granitara, Arhiman, Benjamin Rippel, Andrew Johnson, Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries, Cole Kurkowski, Zachary Nash, Chris Gerlinsky, Sykes St., Jonathan Lima, Tony Perkins, John Comtois, JAN R GERSTON, Kyle Halgerson, Phnod, Seth Junot, Laird Burkett

Comments

Anonymous

OMG OMG OMG classic NEXT T-shirt! Whoo-hoo!

Jason Wellband

My grandma bought a huge china cabinet in 2007 or 2008. It has built-in recessed "accent" lighting controlled by touching a hinge on one of the doors. I don't think it works on the other hinges or doors though.

Anonymous

Jokes on you, I'm watching this on a MacBook with a Touch Bar

Anonymous

Those touch force-sensing screens were abandoned for the same reason as the headphone jack: COURAGE. Or was that just “we can’t get the bloody thing thin enough with it still there?”

Anonymous

Yay! another TC video. Just want to thank Alec for including the direct link to YouTube in the post so that I can click through to YouTube right away (I prefer watching there, as I use Enhancer for YouTube to speed up videos, etc)

Paul Fisher

Hi Alec that IC is an early microcontroller not an ASIC

MrHammond

I got one about 9 years ago, but within 2 years, the circuit died... The lamp is now connected to a switchable socket with the circuit removed... Rather use a switch than "talking to my lamp" :-P BTW: remember those TVs with tiptronic channel switches? When a fly would land on the switch panel and the TV switching channels to whatever the fly was thinking about? ;-)

Anonymous

Nice patent discussion. If ever have any patent questions I'm an IP Atty in the midwest, feel free to reach out.

Anonymous

"beige, new age raves, and Nicolas Cage's coming of age"

Vlycop

Any idea why ours seam to trigger randomly when a CPL is used on the same power line ? If it use capacitance, it shouldn't be bothered by noise on the AC, should it ?

Anonymous

I always thought it was weird that these lamps always felt like they were vibrating when you touched them.

Don Eitner

I just started watching this video but I'm giving a thumbs-up just for the NeXT shirt!

Anonymous

Is the standby power any better on that modern module from the hardware store?

Anonymous

my grandma had one that would give you a little zap every time you touched it

Anonymous

At the start, when your phone goes off the left of the screen, I thought you'd move your head to try and stay on - he he! I own two touch lamps, you can still get them in the UK.

Michael Dunn

Your humor was on point in this one :D

Anonymous

We should invite him like we invited Linus Sebastian from Linus Tech Tips… Howdy from D-Wave Systems Canada! 😅

Anonymous

This reminded me of an interesting MacBook Pro "feature" I found out about the hard way. Their newer (apparently since ~2015?) "Force Touch" trackpads don't actually move or click for real - the click is a software-controlled haptic feedback! (So they appear to be a case of using both capacitance and some kind of pressure sensor) I learned about this when it stopped working for me - the trackpad stopped clicking. So then I had to restart my computer while holding some magic combination of buttons to convince the software to start doing it again. I also regularly have to kill the process for my touchbar "buttons" because it tends to crash and break. Macs are so intuitive and easy to use! But then again, if companies like Apple and Google didn't keep making these kinds of "improvements", how could their engineers ever "demonstrate impact" and get promotions?

Anonymous

Me: Whoa, $35 in 1955??? ::pauses video:: ::open new tab, go to https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm :: Me: Whoa!!! $340!?! ::resumes video:: Alex: Oh, and adjusted for inflation, this was a $340 lamp. ::writes this comment::

Anonymous

I never tire of the magic of 'buying two of them' ☺

Anonymous

Hook one of these up to your Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster, and you can make your toast dark, darker, darkest, bread.

Anonymous
>>43861640

That's the 60-Hz (or 50-Hz in some areas of the world) ripple leaking through the crude power supply for the logic circuitry. Modern versions with energy-efficient switching power supplies shouldn't produce this effect.

Anonymous
>>43866757

Most likely not a real pressure sensor. Capacitive touch sensors can take advantage of the fact that your finger is a squishy meat stick to pretend to measure pressure, but what they're really measuring is how much area of your squishy fingertip has flattened out on the pad. Capacitance is proportional to area.

Neph

this touchy video was quite.. illuminating

tim1724
>>43862546

Probably using that original 1955 connect-the-sensor-to-the-mains-voltage design then, not the modern integrated circuit variety.

Paul Schuur

The capacitator brightened my day!

Anonymous

Love that shirt. :)

Anonymous

Rad shirt

Benjamin A.

I sometimes wake to my touch lamp on its lowest setting. Cats...

Anonymous

You got me searching google for "capacitator", which didn't work, so then I searched for "potato capacitor"... and I found this: https://rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/potato_chip_macrochip_w_555_timer_circuit.htm .....and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huFRrcaF6VY ....and this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925838818307187 ...and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqgxQG1PyfM

Anonymous

My wife and I both said simultaneously that we were expecting you to clap twice before the screen went black at the end. :-)

Anonymous

Capacitator.... big Clive will love that....

Anonymous

I'm glad my suggestion was helpful. You going over how the IC goes through a self calibration when its first plugged in helped me understand the erratic behavior of the lamp I grew up with, which I would try turning on by the switched outlet it was plugged into.

HarveyB

I have a friend who does Morse code on his ham radio. He said his neighbor across the alley has a touch lamp that cycles "bright, brighter, brightest, off" as he operates his code key. Says he hopes the guy never figures out what is making it do that! Hilarious!

Preston (Bilskirnir)

Now I can figure out why my touch lamp is not working.

Simon Albinsson

To be fair it wouldn't be that hard to construct an analog ciruit that was auto-calibrating. I was going to do it before i posted this comment, buuut i never got around to it before you made the post public. Anyway the general idea is that an RC-oscillators frequency is dependant on the capacitance. So in order to make it self-adjusting you "just" have to look for quick changes in the frequency. This can be done with a simple high-pass filter. It would require an extra 1 or 2 tubes though so it wouldn't make any sense to build it in a vintage module, but what i am trying to say is that you don't need a micro-processor to make a self adapting module.

Circuitmike
>>43860972

The noise is probably being capacitively coupled into the metal surface and registering as a touch. It's likely protected against the 50/60 Hz AC being coupled in like that, for obvious reasons, but noise can have much higher frequency components and some of those likely pass through and register.

Circuitmike

As a ham radio operator and shortwave listener, triac-based dimmer circuits are Satan's own lighting control technology. It's like this: You: "And now for some relaxing mood lighting!" My shortwave radio: BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!! Me: GODDAMMIT!!!

Martin

After watching this video, Youtube recommened a video about SawStop which does the same thing as touch lamps but uses the technology to stop a spinning blade at the instance a human touches it with the body. Interesting connection the Youtube algorithm did there :)