E - Campfire

Have you ever been to Disneyland (or a similar resort in your part of the world)? On the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, there are several areas with fake fire. In the early 1990s, my sister was in the Girl Scouts and my mom called up Disneyland asking where they could buy a fake fire like that because they were going to do a “camp out” but were not allowed to use a real fire. Disneyland put my mom in contact with the company that did the special effects and they donated an actual unit to the Girl Scout troop. Pretty cool. Basically some flickering lights and a fan blowing the fake fire around.

No, while i have been to many countries and most parts of the world ( minus Africa and south of the Antarctic circle )
Then it have always been work related and so little time to get under the skin of the people and places there.
I have only been on Holiday 1 time, and that was 32 years ago and it was 14 days on Ibiza as “bodyguard” for 2 of my friends girlfriends.

Nice of that company to donate a unit like that, sadly that’s not really how things work here, though Danes also donate to this and that its not really in our skill set, at least not compared to Americans.
At least that’s what i think.

Mostly it seem like we just pay a lot in taxes and then let “big brother” take care of things, and Denmark have also been one of the more generous countries with aid to this and that if you factor with size and population.

This is a fun idea although the Q8 is about the perfect base for such an idea really. Long battery life and good output.

It would be easy enough to come up with some form of “tent” to go over the light to give it the right color and diffuse the light to campfire like levels.

The trick is programming the actual firelight flicker to look right. That is no easy task.

You would need to somehow record the lux from an actual fire in high resolution and from that you could use a script to try to mimic it. Although it could take a lot of code space as well.

I realize that 5mm are not exactly high output, but candle flicker LED’s are already a thing.

Evil Mad Scientist is where I bought some. I built a “campfire” for a sleepover my daughter had a few years ago. Four paper towel tubes to look like logs, arranged around a four inch fan blowing upwards on some red and orange toole (tule? flouncy fabric) with several of these in there. Ran the whole thing on a 5 or 12 volt power supply. The kids enjoyed it.

Those Evil Mad Scientist LEDs look cool… A few years ago (about 2003) my cousin was trying out for captain of her high school’s drill team. Part of the project was a notebook that had to really stand out. I decided to help her ( :smiling_imp: ) by working on the notebook. She was allowed and encouraged to solicit help from family members…

The drill team was called the “flaming flashes” and the school color was red…

We she first made a silhouette cutout of a drill team member and cut it from reflective material and put it behind the clear paper cover on the front of the notebook. She then traced an outline of flames, which I then transferred onto a sheet of thin plexiglass and cut out, with notches at the bottom. Then, I sanded the surface of the plexiglass to frost it.I found a circuit schematic for a random firelight flicker driver, ordered the components, and hand assembled it using perfboard from radio shack. I wired a series of red 3mm LEDs, which I then glued to the base of the flames, which was then placed on the cover of the notebook, overlapping the silhouette on the cover. When the power was connected, the LEDs would flicker, creating the Flashing Flames on the cover of the notebook. It was an awesome effect which blew the judges away. Needless to say, she got the drill team captain position… :smiley:

But I think the LEDs with the built in circuit would be an easier option now…

Are you allowed to use a grill and cook out in the wild? If so, make yourself or buy a portable propane fire pit with ceramic logs. While not as nice as burning real logs, would be much nicer than a flashlight or some sort of fake fire.

Something like this. This uses Lava rocks

Also, a full flickering fire kit…

It will have to be something with a okay lumen output for sure, even if you are just going to mimic a camp fire scenario.

We have used some flickering LED tea candles ( running off button cell ) to mimic the lighting on the passenger coaches ( old style pullman coaches ) for my friends G-scale layout in the garden.

2 of those in each wagon roof did well for the night time running on the garden railway ( sorry no video of it )

But for a E - campfire you will have to one up that many times.

Meld-x has candle mode but I’m guessing you want more output. Maybe ask TTerev3 for his thoughts on the matter.

You mean like this one?

This was one i built some years back during a fire-ban during one dry summer at our old cottage. Its made from orange mini-lights, a dozen of those “flicker-flame” bulbs, a fan, some silk, and orange/yellow reflector bulbs. ( added some frosted plastic, some paint, a piece of plywood, soem small logs, wood screws, and voila… a convincing campfire without real flame or heat. I still use it now sometimes. from a distance its quite convincing. I can add more photos on how its built and a video if you like.

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That looks good. :+1: . Pretty convincing looking from the pics. :slight_smile:

Smoke? In the eyes…

Here is one based on mains power supply.

@DBSAR That looks great !
Can you post a video ?

Here is a video of it running. ( the fan is not as loud as it sounds in the video, phone camera is picking it up quite louder than it actually is.

Nice!

That looks terrific. Best put a patent on it before you know who copies it. :stuck_out_tongue: :slight_smile:

Well i did mean just the light emitted from a E- campfire, the actual light dont have to look like a fire as that would be impractical for storage, got to be something you have have in a backpack or maybe even a large pocket.
I just wanted the “mellow” light and glare of a campfire and enough of it to light up the surroundings like a campfire do, so you could go camping when there are a ban on real camp fires.

Once when I was on an outing with the boy scouts we were in an area where fires were not allowed. I took a d.light s2, puts some sticks around it in a teepee like DBSAR, and laid a red handkerchief over it. It served the temporary purpose, which was to provide a focus and gathering point for some group discussion.

DBSAR’s version is way nicer :+1:

That is neato, I wish I would have had something like that for a fireplace insert when I lived in a house with a fireplace I never used.