POV Pong game uses all kinds of smart design

pov-pong-game-uses-smart-design

This little device lets you play some head-to-head pong using a spinning LED display. We're really in love with the design. You get a pretty good idea of the Persistence of Vision aspect of the build by looking at this picture. But hearing [Dennis] explain the entire design in the video after the break has us really loving its features. He's using the head from a VCR as the spinning motor. The … [Read more...]

HDD POV clock takes the best from those that came before it

hdd-pov-clock

The concept behind this clock has been seen before, but [Dieter] tried to combine the best aspects of several projects into his HDD POV clock (translated). The basic principle of the design is to cut a slot into the top platter of the hard drive. This will let the light from some LEDs shine through. By carefully synchronizing the LED with the spinning platter a set of differently colored hands … [Read more...]

POV wheels for a longboard

pov-wheels-for-a-longboard

If you don't mind working with really small components this POV wheel project for a longboard will certainly attract some attention. The name of the game here is small and cheap. Small because the wheels are only 72mm in diameter (about 2.8 inches). Cheap because [Ch00f] wants to produce and sell them locally. He went with an ATtiny24 microcontroller driving fifteen LEDs. Obviously this will … [Read more...]

Laser-etched LED zeotrope looks like a circular monochrome screen

laser-etched-led-zeotrope

The still image of this animated display really doesn't do it justice. But you can get an idea of how this really does look like an old monochrome display. It's actually a zeotrope made from LEDs and etched acrylic. The LEDs blink at a rate that synchronizes with the spinning acrylic to produce an animated image. You probably already know that a zeotrope uses moving physical models to trick the … [Read more...]

Build a POV Death Star, you will

pov-death-star

Building a Persistence of Vision globe is pretty awesome, but overlaying a Death Star pattern on the display takes it to the next level of geekery. Like us, [Jason] has wanted to build one of these for a long time. His success pushes us one step closer to taking the plunge and we hope it will inspire you to give it a shot too. As he mentions in the beginning of his write up, the mechanical bits … [Read more...]

StarGate Eggbeater

eggbeater

[Jason] used a strip of 142 Adafruit LPD8806 Addressable RGB LEDs to create the StarGate Eggbeater persistence of vision display. The LED strips are controlled by an Arduino Mega, which is used to control the strip and provides 21 bit color control for each LED. The strip is housed into a ring-shaped tube which is mounted onto a rod and bearing to allow it to spin. A 1/4 HP motor is used to … [Read more...]

Full-color video on a spinning POV display

full-color-video-pov

Watching Big Buck Bunny on a spinning POV display is pretty impressive. Sure, the circular display area cuts off some of the picture, but otherwise it looks fantastic. This POV display is based on a Gumstix board. It runs embedded Linux which makes video playback rather easy. But translating each frame to the round display is another story. The device is the result of a course project at … [Read more...]