Collaborate Disseminate
[Mike Harrison] has an upcoming project which will combine a large number of flip-dot displays salvaged from buses. [Mike] thought he knew how these things worked, and had a prototype …read more Continue reading A Close Look at How Flip-Dot Displays Really Work
Flip dot displays are awesome — too bad it’s so hard to find large panels to play around with, but that’s for another article. [Pierre Muth] has been working to …read more Continue reading Giving Flip Dots the Oil Treatment to Shut Them Up
Flip dots displays are timeless classics, but driving the large ones can quickly turn into a major challenge. The electromagnets require a lot of current to operate, and the driver …read more Continue reading Mechanically Multiplexed Flip-Dot
Displays have come a long way in the last few decades, but none can deliver the mesmerizing visual and audio experience of a large flip dot display. Both old panels …read more Continue reading 3D Printed Flip Dots
Most people find two problems when it comes to flip-dot displays: where to buy them and how to drive them. If you’re [Pierre Muth] you level up and add the challenge of driving them fast enough to rival non-mechanical displays …read more
Continue reading 30 FPS Flip-Dot Display Uses Cool Capacitor Trick
We love electromagnetic displays: take the modern look of a digital readout, combine with the low-tech coil mechanism that you theoretically could create yourself, add a dash of random clacking sounds, and what’s not to like? Evidently, [Nicolas Kruse] shares our affection for these displays, because he’s taken it beyond theory and created a 7-segment magnetically-actuated display from scratch.
The display is 3D-printed, as you would expect these days. Each segment contains a small neodymium magnet, and each coil a 1 mm iron core for flux concentration. The coils are driven with a 1.6 A peak current, causing the segments …read more
Continue reading Electromagnetic 7-Segment Display Easy on the Eyes AND the Ears
LED matrix displays and flat-screen monitors have largely supplanted old-school electromechanical models for public signage. We think that’s a shame, but it’s also a boon for the tinkerer, as old displays can be had for a song these days in the online markets.
Such was the case for [John Whittington] and his flip-dot display salvaged from an old bus. He wanted to put the old sign back to work, but without a decent driver, he did what one does in these situations — he tore it down and reverse engineered the thing. Like most such displays, his Hannover Display 7 …read more
Continue reading Flip-Dot Display Brought Out of Retirement by New Drivers
Flip-Dot displays are so awesome that they’re making a comeback. But awesome is nothing when you can have an insane flip-dot display that is three-dimensional with the dots floating in mid-air. Researchers at the Universities of Sussex and Bristol have built what they call JOLED, an array of floating pixels that can be controlled via a combination of ultrasonic standing waves and an electrostatic field. These “voxels” can be individually moved in space via ultrasonics, and can also be individually flipped or rotated through any angle, via the electrostatic field.
The key to the whole thing is something they call …read more
Admit it, you’ve always wanted to have your own flip-dot display to play with. Along with split-flap displays, flip-dots have an addictive look and sound that hearkens back half a century but still feels like modern technology. They use a magnetic coil to actuate each pixel — physical discs painted contrasting colors on either side. It means that you really only need electricity when changing the pixel, and that each pixel makes a satisfyingly unobtrusive click when flipped. The only problem with the displays is that they’re notoriously difficult to get your hands on.
Breakfast, a Brooklyn-based hardware firm known …read more
Continue reading Flip Dot Displays Appear with Modernized Drivers
