Constructional Project

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BIKE WHEEL POV DISPLAY

This project uses POV to produce a spectacular glowing
display on a rotating pushbike wheel as you ride along.
So what is POV? It stands for ‘persistence of vision’.
It’s a term that’s applied to devices that rely on
the human eye’s tendency to ‘see’ an image
for a short time after it has disappeared.
Designed by Ian Paterson

24 Everyday Practical Electronics, June 2009

 Constructional Project

H OW WOULD YOU LIKE to own the most talked-about

pushbike in the school/street/suburb. . . galaxy? Build
this POV display and you’ll be well on the way.
You really have to see it to believe it – and we’ve even
made it easy for you. As well as the images printed here,
there are several more you can view online at www.ianpa-
terson.org/projects
OK, you’ve now seen them and you’d have to agree that
they look pretty spectacular. You want to do the same for
your bike? Just make sure you keep it chained up, because
everyone will want it!

Persistence of vision
You probably don’t realise it, but you use POV every
day – when you watch TV. Movies also take advantage of
this phenomenon.
The TV and movie picture is not continuous, – rather
(in the case of TV), 25 individual pictures are displayed
every second. But your eyes and brain cannot follow the
25 individual frames of picture per second – instead, they

 




If you slowed down those frames to, say, 10 per second,
then you would be able to see the period between each




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movies where the hero moves like a Thunderbirds puppet.
Let’s take this one step further. Say you had a moving light
– we’ll make it an LED because they can be turned on and

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light – even though your brain knows full well that it is
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for your brain to process, so they appear to be permanently on. Talk about a WOW! factor: this three-high static display uses
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 different coloured LEDs in each wheel to reveal three different
wheel, so they follow a circular path as the wheel rotates. 











By using some clever circuitry to switch the LEDs on and third wheels are driven by friction between the tyres.
and off at particular moments, a pattern or picture can be
created – in fact, the display is almost unlimited. It can be
anything from geometric shapes to text, cartoon characters A Hall effect sensor measures the rotational speed of the
and even very high contrast pictures (see examples below). 



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This sensor sends speed pulses to a microcontroller, which
In a nutshell then turns the individual LEDs on and off in such a way
The display consists of three PC boards, each with a  

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row of 32 LEDs on each side (a total of 64 LEDs). These
boards are mounted radially in/on the spokes of a push- Circuit description
bike wheel and each has a battery pack mounted near The complete circuit for one POV display module is shown
the wheel’s hub. in Fig.1. Three such modules are required, arranged so that

Here are just a few of the images generated by the author: (from left) pagan star, ET, invisible unicorn, Saturn and evolution!

Everyday Practical Electronics, June 2009 25

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Everyday Practical Electronics, June 2009

 Constructional Project

 
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Everyday Practical Electronics, June 2009

you don’t get lacquer in the two connectors.
 Constructional Project

FIRMWARE
Ian Paterson’s firmware for this project – 628h.
asm, povslope.bas and povimage.bas can
be down-loaded from his website at www.
ianpaterson.org/projects or from the EPE
website, www.epemag.com

Because they are sensitive to both mechanical and

thermal stress, you must use great care when attaching
them to the circuit board. Their leads must be bent
down 90° towards the face which has a chamfered
edge on its top. This means that the face will actually


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When bending the leads, you must hold the sensor
lead with needle-nose pliers between the plastic case
and the point at which the lead is being bent. This is
to prevent mechanical stress at the point where the
leads enter the sensor’s case.
When soldering, you must also use needle-nose
pliers as a heatsink to prevent damage from excessive
heat. Once the sensors have been successfully soldered
onto the board, there is little risk of further damage.

Soldering the LEDs

You have probably noticed that we have left the
LEDs until last. That’s because there are a lot of them
and they can also be a bit tricky to solder. There are
32 LEDs to be soldered to each side of the PC board.
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the LED next to the cathode (labelled ‘K’ on the circuit
diagram). Also, the anode (A) lead is usually longer.
On the top (component side) of the PC board, the
LEDs are arranged with their cathodes (K) oriented
towards CON1 (the 4-pin connector) while on the
bottom side, the reverse is true – see Fig.2.
The LEDs are controlled in pairs, one for each side
of the board. This ensures that your chosen POV
image can be viewed from both sides of the bike.
The LED pairs are connected in series with small
jumper wires (red dots on the component layout
diagram) through the PC board that serve the same
purpose as a PC board ‘via’ – they connect together
the copper tracks on both sides of the PC board
where required.
The biggest challenge in soldering these jumpers
is that the heat from your soldering iron will travel
along the wire and melt the connection on the other
side of the board. I found it helpful to use those ‘third
hand’ soldering aids with alligator clips to hold the
wire in place.
If you are able to obtain or make PC boards with
vias, then these jumpers are not necessary.
Finally, plug the three ICs into their sockets. Be
careful to line up the notch in the end of the IC with

Pictured here are the same PC boards shown opposite;



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Everyday Practical Electronics, June 2009 2

 Constructional Project

Parts List –
POV Display *

3 PC boards, each 50 x 245mm,

code 711, (available from the
EPE PCB Service as a set)
3 18-pin IC sockets
6 24-pin IC sockets
3 7.2V or 8.4V 700mAh (or
higher) battery packs (do not
use 8.4V with red LEDs) – see
text
3 4-pin PCB keyed header pin
strips (CON1)
3 3-pin PCB keyed header pin
strips
3 miniature On/Off slider switches
for battery packs
3 magnets – see text
Material for backing plates – see
text
Semiconductors
3 PIC16F628A microcontroller
programmed with 628h.hex
(IC1) In daylight, you can see the arrangement of the PC boards and batteries inside

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6 STP16C596 LED driver (IC2,

against the axle and are secured at the rim end via a couple of cable ties onto the
IC3) – see alternatives below spokes. It’s important to keep the battery packs (which ever form you use) close
3 DN6851 Hall effect sensors to the axle to prevent the wheel getting out of balance.
(HS1) – see alternatives below
3 LM2931AZ-5 low-dropout the notch in the end of the socket. A Testing
regulators (REG1) second check is a small paint dot or Test the operation of the POV board
192 high brightness LEDs indent beside pin 1 – you must make 

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Capacitors the component overlay. on the bike! Of course, the microcontrol-
3 10PF 16V radial electrolytics ler should be programmed at this stage.
Loading an image Apply power and wave a magnet
3 100nF MKT polyester or
monolithic Since this POV design stores the im- in front of the Hall effect sensor. You
age in program memory space, the mi- should see the LEDs illuminate. They
crocontroller must be re-programmed 
 





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Alternative Parts per pixel image and save it with an &
  


STMicroelectronics STP16C596
  


 over and try again. The faster you wave
LED driver alternatives: ɀ Edit POVIMAGE.BAS so that it ref- the magnet in front of the sensor, the
Allegro A6276EA erences the new image and run the 

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Maxim MAX6969ANG program. It will save its output with fails to illuminate the LEDs, the most
Maxim MAX6971ANG a .ASM extension. likely causes are a defective Hall effect
ɀ Copy and paste the .ASM output into sensor or a bad program.
Panasonic DN6851 Hall effect 
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sensor alternatives: ɀ ; 
 
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Melexis US5881EUA program the POV board via the four- The battery voltage needs to be
Allegro A1101LUA-T pin in-circuit serial programming high enough to allow the regulator
Allegro A1103LUA-T &;^:€ 
 9  
 to provide 5V for the microcontroller
* This list is for all three modules does not supply power to the board and also just high enough to allow the
during programming, so you must 678 
  

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supply power from a battery pack or through each LED pair. Try using a
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Everyday Practical Electronics, June 2009

 Constructional Project

low forward voltage (such as red) To mount the PC boards in the Mounting the magnet
and 8.4V for other colours (such as wheel, a protective backing was made To trigger the Hall effect sensors, the
white and blue). Be sure not to use a out of 3mm sintra (often used as a rigid author used a stack of four magnets
battery voltage that’s more than about backing onto which printed material from an old 3.5-inch hard drive.
2V higher than twice the forward LED can be mounted), one side was covered The stack of magnets were placed
voltage, otherwise the LED drivers with anti-static plastic (cut from a on the inside of one of the bike forks,
may be damaged. motherboard bag), and was attached to immediately above the region under
In the prototype, battery packs were the solder side of the PC boards using which the Hall effect sensor passed,
made up from AA NiMH cells. I used plastic cable ties. then secured in place with a strip of
700mAh cells, but with 2500mAh now We are not sure if the anti-static tape.
available, 1000mAh and even 1500mAh 


 Other suitable magnets would be one
are becoming quite cheap. The larger used as a precaution in case a static or more of the rare-earth or so-called
the capacity, the longer your display charge builds up on the sintra as the ‘super magnets’ which are enormously
will last. wheel spins. powerful for their size. EPE
You can use six cells (for 7.2V) or, as At one end of the sintra, a crescent-
long as you don’t use red LEDs, seven shaped notch was cut to match the More information?
cells (8.4V) in your battery packs – radius of the wheel front hub shaft. 9

 
 
 
 
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it’s more a case of getting a suitable On the other end, a notch for the spoke  
 

holder. All three packs should be the nipple was also cut. thor’s website, just set you browser to:
same weight to avoid unbalancing All that is needed to secure a PC www.ianpaterson.org/projects
the wheel. board to the wheel is two cable ties
An alternative, albeit a bit heavier, at the spoke nipple end – the other
is to buy 7.2V or 8.4V battery packs end stays put because the crescent- Reproduced by arrangement
with SILICON CHIP
intended for radio controlled models. shaped notch engages around the magazine 2009.
High power (3500mAh+ ) ones are ex- wheel hub. www.siliconchip.com.au




 To keep the hub end of the boards
capacity types on eBay for less than in place, two short sections of plastic
£10. Just make sure you mount them hose were used. These were slit down

$” one side, wrapped around the hub shaft
and attached with cable ties. These act
Wheel mounting as spacers that prevent the boards from
The accompanying photo shows the sliding laterally along the length of the
position of the PC boards on the bike hub shaft.
wheel. It’s important to note that the N
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inner edge of the PC board sits right or larger wheel. Also, when using
up on the axle and that the whole three boards, it’s easier to mount
thing is centred between the spokes, them in a wheel with a number of
so that the board is right in the centre spokes that’s divisible by three (eg,
of the wheel. `Q 
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Everyday Practical Electronics, June 2009 31

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