[Daniel Daigle] is developing a rotary display that uses persistence of vision to graph data. The hardware he used includes a spinning head from a VCR, some LEDs, and a timing circuit to display 360 degrees of data. His timing input uses a waveform so this will work with any application where you can generate a PWM signal.
Check out his videos after the break that demonstrate a graph with a single line and another with six display lines.
Single line rotary display
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN9VD8ya7_0]
Six line rotary display
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X06lndAIj7A]
[Thanks Tim]
Very slick! POV is so magical and cool…
I didn’t think it was all that impressive until I saw the circuit and realized he didn’t use a uC. Nice!
Neat, but not new.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFTDOZz-LlE
@pooky POV hasn’t been new for a long time. It’s still cool in general. Though this implementation isn’t that impressive. Especially considering it “drifts”.
I still like the pacman clock on youtube. (It uses 32 surface mount rgb leds and a hard drive motor).
@Mikey
Drifts?
Don’t see any drift either
this uses an open trnasformer to connect the two sides. no brushes, or wires so it is prety unique.
Hey, its still a good use of an old VCR, now all he has to do is at more LEDs, a portable power supply, a HDTV receiver and a video converter and he’ll have the worlds smallest mechanical television, now THATS a waste of time!
@pooky, notice in the video you posted, it doesn’t drift. Notice in the video posted by HAD, it does. It basically shows the same thing over and over, but slowly slides to the left. Like it would have trouble showing the same image over and over and holding it steady.
I did a similar thing a couple of years ago:
http://us.cactii.net/~bb/propclock
Mine displays text (ie clock/etc) but the concept of using a VCR drum for POV is identical.
hehe, neat circuit.
I might try this sometime, now dead and working video recorders are available for nothing due to the digital switchover.
Have a look at the back issues of EPE magazine as they had an article about salvaging parts from among other things, dead VCRs.
I’ve also salvaged very nice brushless motors (JVCs have the best) from demised VCRs so if you see one rescue it.
someone should try this with smd RGB LEDs of the type used in some newer MP3 players, should be able to get a reasonable resolution this way.