Comments on: VUFan – VU meter

By: AJ

AJ — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 02:00:25 +0000

Interesting work, check this out, it may inspire you to take things further: http://www.uva.co.uk/wp/wp-content/projects/volume/volume.mp4

By: Christopher Mitchell

Christopher Mitchell — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:18:38 +0000

They’re brushless case fans, so I doubt that wear and tear will be much of a problem. So far I reconfigured it to use all 7 fans for the visualization, with the two multicolor ones at the top. I’m looking into lasers, fog, etc etc.

By: srilyk

srilyk — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:03:04 +0000

These fans actually would be a lot like rotary speakers – speakers designed for the 0-60hz range.

Of course they represent a higher range of sound… interesting

By: Guitar Maniac

Guitar Maniac — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 08:02:52 +0000

@ #15 – the amount of wear would be miniscule and would come from the brushes in the motor wearing (if it even has brushes). I would think that lower revolutions would increase longevity but I think would use more power.

@Creator – Awesome dude, please keep us posted!!

By: Vladsinger

Vladsinger — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 02:11:40 +0000

Will repeatedly revving the fans up and down kill the motors eventually?

By: mad_cow

mad_cow — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:53:13 +0000

10 points using Nightwish,

I think fog would be an amazing idea, also maybe some lazers?

By: Christopher Mitchell

Christopher Mitchell — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 17:48:10 +0000

Actually, I was thinking ping-pong balls on the suggestions of several of my colleagues.

By: jaromil

jaromil — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 12:43:00 +0000

the german project blinkenlights has done this already with leds and even lights in buildings.

just two weeks ago at the CCC camp there were two HUGE light vumeters (about 3m high, 1m diameter) out of the concert hangar.

nice hack anyway. yes i thought it was cool. make it bigger :)

By: neil

neil — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 02:15:04 +0000

TIP120’s are darlington pair NPN transistors not FETs.

By: Christopher Mitchell

Christopher Mitchell — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 01:26:56 +0000

@8: Interesting idea.
@9: Thanks :)
@6 again: Checked out DiscoLitez2 Pro, it’s seriously amazing. I’m definitely considering finding or buying more fans and expanding this more now. :)

By: nathan belomy

nathan belomy — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:54:16 +0000

That was so rad man. I wish that I could make one of those. For reals, that is going to be on the next rap video yo.

By: Chupa

Chupa — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:16:23 +0000

You could eliminate the need for the PC all together if you used something like a LM4970.
http://www.national.com/pf/LM/LM4970.html

By: ChiTownJerry

ChiTownJerry — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:03:09 +0000

At the very least, put some metallic streamers on the fans so you can see the the fans revving up. Well done!

By: Christopher Mitchell

Christopher Mitchell — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:44:04 +0000

@1: I wanted the future possibilities of running patterns on the array while no music is playing

@5: Thanks, I also like will’s idea

@6: I limited it to 5 because of the number of fans I had on hand. If I can get more fans, I’d love to expand it. I’d probably use Strobe and Auto Feed to do the multiplexing, something like that. I’d also be very interested, if I can find 5 or 11 more fans, to put a second column on the other side of the pole so I can do left and right visualization independently.

By: Buzzkill

Buzzkill — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:41:49 +0000

Cool. I’ve used Discolitez before. Why did you not use the full 8 channels that you can drive off the parallel port? Also, use the Pro verion of Discolitez. It is insane what you can do with it. You clearly have the whits about you to get the first 5 channels going. Finish the other 3, and or grab the other shift register circuit and start inching towards 32! Set up 4 towers of 8 fans each. Now you got some air swirlin’ led blazin’ action!