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MAKE Flickr photo pool member Elemenoh writes "This is my "Light Emitting Diode Persistence of Vision Helmet". I made it for my Gizmology class this semester. On the end of the black arm is a vertical row of 8 red LEDs that are attached to a chip which controls the rate at which they flash. You can program short text messages into the chip via 3 buttons on it's side. When the LED POV flasher is on I then flip a switch on the helmet to engage the motor which spins the LEDs around my head. When in the dark the flashing LEDs combined with the rotational movement give the illusion of red letters floating around my head in a halo-like fashion. I can't capture the red letters with a still or video camera so you will have to see it in person. I will have a step-by-step DIY tutorial posted on The Ominous Moo so you can make one yourself!" - Link.
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Less Mugging, Better Linking. Could we get a direct link to the DIY guide?
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monopole, the author didnt post it yet (only added a photo to the make pool). when its up, we'll post it.
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Oh drat. I'd started working on a "plexiglas yarlmuke" version of this; where the assembly is invisible because multiple spokes move at a few RPS, and where the helmet is nearly invisible because it's transparent and adhered to my bald scalp. I demonstrated it at december Dorkbot in Seattle.
My goal was to have a "hologram" of cylindrical color video hovering mysteriously around my head. Show it off at SF conventions. I didn't get very far beyond a crude proto of the rotor section wo/LEDs. I planned on using (six?) synched phase-shifted POV strips to allow low, non-dangerous RPM, all mounted on a 12" diameter cylinder of bent transparent plastic taken from a Walgreens "poster frame." A plexi disk on the small DC motor's shaft has six horizontal blades supporting the cylinder. If large diamond-shaped "teeth" are cut in the edges of the cylinder, the edges (and therfore the entire cylinder) become nearly invisible when it starts rotating. At a few revolutions per second it can be safely stopped with a finger. The challenge would be to align all the LEDs so the six images don't jump around vertically per each rotation.
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