like i say can we not have somthing a bit more intresting other than flashing leds plz love this site but projects that have been shown lately r very boreing and stale dont mean 2 be rude how a boute some new computer hacks or remote model building hacks or cd burning hacks firm wear hacks plzplz thank u urs sincerely mr s.preece

Posted at 5:08 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by steve preece

What are you talking about? Flashing LEDs rule.

Posted at 5:12 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by furtim

i have to agree with 1, I do really love this stie but it’s getting a little mundane. This one though was acutally kindof cool, allthough it was the first one in the last couple of weeks that really got my attention. Not from a technically aspect, I just really like led stuff.

Posted at 5:15 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by profsparks

yess leds rule 4 the simple minded

Posted at 5:20 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by mr s .preece

Too right furt. This LED hack has upper **AND** lower case! It doesn’t get much better than that! Good times.

Posted at 5:21 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by Clevertrousers

steve please learn how to spell simple words like “for” and “about” and people will not think you are simple yourself.

Posted at 5:25 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by japroach

you definatly cannot go wrong with flashing leds.

Posted at 5:26 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by chris

ok ganging up on me now well shame on u all if i was simple i would be looking at some nice bright leds like u all wouldnt i u prick

Posted at 5:29 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by mr s .preece

creeps r me: no, ganging up on you would involve non-blog related things like calling people simple minded, or making up funny anagrams of your handle.

Posted at 5:45 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by clevertrousers

@steve: Well, write your own bit about that cool hack you did just recently! That’d be great. Man that project was really awesome!

Ben Kokes, nice job. Start easy and work your way up, that’s my motto. Next up is a programmable LED marquee, get to it!

Posted at 5:50 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by Bas

look just whant somthing a bit more intresting than flashing leds whats wrong with that

Posted at 6:01 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by steve preece

steve, lighten up. if the leds aren’t interesting you, you should just roll another smoke and grab a can.

happy?

yes. good.

Posted at 6:38 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by jim

wtf is with you people, i watched the video and its a clever hack, and i feel somewhat drawn to watch it over and over again. So if you can’t add to this, for example; things you would improve on, problems you had building it, etc…, then please don’t comment.

And you are not welcome in our hackaday community, go troll over at i-hacked for that.

Posted at 6:59 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by fucter

sorry folks this is getting out of hand i thought the internett was all aboute freedom of speach boy was i wrong and by the way i dont drink or smoke

Posted at 7:10 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by steve preece

Hey Steve, how old are you

Posted at 8:17 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by evan

ya theres freedom of speech on the web
which is why everyone has the freedom to flame you for a dumbass comment

Posted at 8:45 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by stev

Hack a day is a great site. They’re much better than Make where all they do all day is post links to crappy instructables. I remember seeing a link to an instructable for a “laptop shade” that was a cardboard box turned on its side with the laptop in it.

Posted at 9:35 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by roddefig

What steve fails to see is that it isn’t always about the hack as it is presented, but what one can DO with said information to meet their own nefarious ends.

Posted at 9:37 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by PacketMonkee

“Freedom of speech” does not imply that the operator of a server/website must use his machine to assist you in the communication of your free speech. Even if not, you would be free to say as you wish; and we would be free to voice our opinions that the manner you are doing it is disrespectful and the content is not useful.

Also, this tends to be an area where the respect to use proper english and not childish “1337″-speak with abhorrently poor spelling is appreciated, and failure to put in the effort to communicate effectively in such a manner is sometimes met with rightful annoyance. It really is disrespectful to not put in the effort to use mature english when in a relatively intellectual forum. (provided that it is an english-speaking forum, of course. Otherwise it would just be silly, like me writing this whole post in Lojban.)

Posted at 9:50 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by jonored

Neat hack. I like it a lot.

Too much effort with the wiring, though. Next time for a project like this you want a wire-wrapping tool, trust me. If Rat Shack still has them in stock, they were only a few dollars last time I bought one. I’m sure you could google for one too.

Get the manual tool to see how it works for you, then if you like it you can buy the powered one with the slitter (when I was a kid that was not an affordable option for me.)

While you’re shopping, buy a handful of 16-pin wire wrap sockets to keep around. Really handy things. You should be able to wrap directly to the LED leads and probably the other components, too, but if not you can always plug them into a spare socket and wrap to that.

I uesd to have a very old CPU that was a set of four large boards that were all rows of wire-wrapped 16-pin chips! The layer of wires was almost half an inch thick on the back. I kept one of the boards; it’s a 16kb RAM board made of wirewound core. I have it hanging in my cube. It’s a work of art.

Wire wrapping goes amazingly fast. Sometimes old-school still rules.

Posted at 10:23 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by jaded

“i thought the internett was all aboute freedom of speach boy was i wrong”

indeed… get your own website and you might have a bit of free speach ;)

“look just whant somthing a bit more intresting than flashing leds whats wrong with that”

The wrong part was complaining about it here ;) Want something different? ’tis but a google search away. Find something new? you could send in a tip and it might end up here.

—-
In any case, it’s not too bad :P Not a big fan of rat’s nest wiring, but I’ve done worse in the past :p

Posted at 11:28 pm on Jun 28th, 2006 by trebuchet03

you guys can cool your jets over the supposed ‘lame hacks’. Im in the midst of pimping out my wireless router in ways youve never imagined. I should be done within a month :D

oh and by the way, flashing LED’s are awesome. Except the more colors, the better!

Posted at 1:18 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by Stevediraddo

*marquee

Posted at 1:39 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by Evan B

btw, it’s ‘marquee’

Posted at 1:41 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by geek

sorry but i agree with steve boreing leds

Posted at 4:40 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by cal

Stop your whining steve

This website is free to view, and not once have i seen it ask for donations, so techinally your not losing anything by being here, but posting ignorant, stupid comments that nobody really wants to hear makes it less enjoyable for the rest of us..

By the looks of sites going down with bandwith, Hackaday is fairly popular, so pleasing everybody at once is not possible, some people choose to build a bridge, and others choose to be complete wankers like your last 4 or 5 posts. We do not like your kind.

Seriously go find a brick wall, and bang your head against it a few times.

Posted at 4:46 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by Fragged

the idea is good, and the hack is very easy but great!
i like this one, regards

Posted at 7:21 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by one

Video link is down, do the LEDs scroll, fade or what?

Posted at 8:37 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by pretorious

wow all this arguing is really childish. Seems to happen with every hack. i happen to like this hack, even if it’s not technically a “hack”. if you don’t like the recent projects here on hackaday, then build something yourself!

Posted at 10:03 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by andrew

Great idea!

Even though its a simple concept its all some people need to get them started on an LED project. Would be great to see a project like this which takes it all a little further. Such as a ‘Manual Input’ Dart board scorer. which allows you to use the LED array (or even better LCD, but may be too technical for this sort of project) along with some PIC based maths to work out the scores!

Anyways, Stop bitching and take the project at face value! Every one starts somewhere and need a kick in the right direction sometimes!

Master-Bates

Posted at 11:08 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by MBates

That’s a pretty cool project. It’s Strangely mesmerizing. Lots of other uses for it to… getting familiar with shift registers can help you build discrete logic for dealing with serial data (and thus, more involved hacks).

As for the whiners… If you don’t like what you see do something to change it, submit something you think is a more worthy hack, hack something yourself and submit it. If you have a serious complaint send one of the site admins an email… don’t post comment spam. Not only is it annoying for the rest of us but it’s insulting and rude to the person who’s hack you’re commenting in; it makes you look like a lazy insensitive prick.

If you put half the time you spent writing complaints in the comments with actually finding new and interesting hacks to submit maybe you wouldn’t have anything left to complain about.

Posted at 11:38 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by Twistedsymphony

I find it amusing that people can create these interesting “hacks” yet they can’t figure out how to compress a video 10s long to under 4MB. :P

Posted at 11:43 am on Jun 29th, 2006 by Diddle

Hello all,
Thank you for your comments. The constructive and destructive ones are all helpful for my future projects. Yes, the marquee is simple and pretty straight forward in design. The point was to use it as an office sign, and to make it relatively un-modifiable. I didn’t want my friends and co-workers taking a PIC/Microcontroller out of the sign and reprogramming it, or removing wire-wraps. I do appreciate the suggestions though.

A Note: The last picture on the page is a link to the video. If the hosted video link is offline, just click and view.

-Ben

Posted at 12:03 pm on Jun 29th, 2006 by Ben Kokes

aghh.. the point of something like this is to show people they dont need horsepower for something useful. I would bet that if you asked several hackers how to use a shift register, they would look at you funny. It is always important to not forget the humble 74xx and 555 chips out there.

As a followup suggestion, I am going to contradict myself and post 33 by sugesting another hack using LED arrays. Simplifies wiring, its rather small, and would likely require a small pic.. but would be a fun project.

Posted at 11:02 pm on Jun 29th, 2006 by OrbnLgnd

Ben! Good Job :) Very neat little hack. Could you possibly increase the brightness of the B and K by driving each ‘level’ with a transistor and single current limiting resistor, or even simply redusing the value of the resistors you have used? Cool anyhow.

Posted at 4:01 am on Jun 30th, 2006 by Krusty

it was a great hack LED’s rule i can see all the flaming of it if it just sat there but the LED’s chase eachother so its a great hack so “steve” shut up and every one else that is complaning about the hacks on hack a day go out and make your own hack and stop complaning about none.

Posted at 10:36 am on Jun 30th, 2006 by tylerL

the stupid whiners and the led hackers need to call a truce. some sort of stupid, whining led hack?

Posted at 2:02 pm on Jun 30th, 2006 by dylan willemsa

thats all they do is whine i mean if u dont like the hack then fine there opinoin but stop bitching about it you know

Posted at 5:21 pm on Jul 1st, 2006 by tylerL

What I like about things like this is that it gives good ideas for beginner to intermediate level hobbyists. Every single thing on here doesn’t have to be a jet pack or something. An LED marquee is really cool, especially if you make it yourself.

Posted at 1:57 pm on Jul 8th, 2006 by Lacus Odii

Oooohhhh, pretty lights.
You could adapt this to something bigger using cold cathodes and mechanical relays. Think disco floor.

Posted at 12:27 pm on Aug 2nd, 2006 by HaX80r

I think it’s pretty cool how you did that by strobbing a couple of 555 times through an array of shift registers. All emergency Vehicle Lighting has turned to LED Lighting. Those run on the same theory with the addition of adding output Transistors to give it a bigger push. Nice Approach.

Posted at 6:15 am on Aug 18th, 2006 by tjnodes