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The Visionary Sound Company(a.k.a. neat gizmos for hum heads & squints!)
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Introducing...
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It uses a combination of colored lights to reproduce the final luminous flame - just like stage lighting! |
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It flickers in the way we perceive a candle to flicker - we expect candles to flicker a lot more than they actually do. |
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By the clever use of quadratic residue theory their flicker sequence seems random and real - not just cheesy alternating lights. |
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Their flames are encased in hot glue so that they can be re-dipped and therefore resized and reshaped by any competent props person. - no need to buy additional flames for each new production. |
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As with all my products, it works off of a half dead 9 volt battery - it will give you 4 to 8 hours of beautifully flickering flame from a wireless mic battery that has already been used on a show. |
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The circuit board has a small link in it that can be removed and a switch wired across it to make the candle flicker more as if it is almost going out - great for simulating blowing it out. |
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Although the SafeFlame comes with the flame inserted into a connector at the top of the circuit board it can be extended using just three wires. Also, even though the battery clip is connected to the circuit board it can be extended using the simple wired battery clip. |
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The SafeFlame will actually work off of any DC voltage from 24 volts down to 6 volts so you could easily use a transformer on it and have it switched from a switchable lighting circuit. |
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As the lights are made from LEDs they will last a very long time - you are more likely to lose or someone damage the flame than it burn out. |
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The new circuit board is very small at 1.75" x 0.5" which makes it as wide as the edge of a 9Volt battery just a little bit taller. |
As you can see from the photo on the left, the flame on the SafeFlame is a small ball of hot glue shaped to be theatrically flame like, with three wire prongs poking out of the bottom that fit into the connector on the top of the circuit board. I have found that it is very hard to photograph the brightness of the flame in bright light. This attempt looks good after the brightness and contrast has been played with a bit and gives a sense of how well the flames compete with stage lighting although it completely washes out the different colors that are used The flame can be extended anywhere by soldering three wires to the three prongs and inserting the ends of the wires into the connector. Don't worry if you get the prongs mixed up, it just won't work. You won't damage the flame. Similarly, you won't damage the circuit board if you accidentally connect the battery the wrong way round. It just won't work. This little circuit is very robust and can be mounted inside any prop by just hot gluing the underside of the circuit board to whatever. Just make sure that you don't short out any of the circuit board by placing it on any metal without a layer of insulation beneath it.
Here is a photo of me camped out on the corner of the heatshrink.com booth at USITT in Minneapolis in March. I'm joined by my two graduate students Jason Romney and Michel Marrano who are checking out one of my previous inventions the SoundPlug (it's a setup as they both own one already!). By the way, Jason and Michel launched their own neat software at the convention for setting amplifier gains correctly. Check out their website at www.gainset.com The birthday cake I am holding has ten candles on it with ten circuit boards inside all powered off of one half dead 9 volt battery. Two switches underneath turn it on and off and also control the rapid flickering for simulating someone blowing out the candles. I have to say that everyone was very impressed with this ability as it could also be used to simulate windy conditions when carrying a flame across the stage or during a scene change etc.
The SafeFlame comes as a fully assembled and working device that is ready to be built into any prop. Because of the small size of the circuit board and expertise needed in soldering the components to it, we cannot offer it as a kit as originally planned.
This site was last updated 06/29/05
