Daniel Ross' Tachyscope 1.0 Is a Dual-Channel POV Display for Your Steampunk Serial Needs
With two separate POV displays and Nixie tubes for good measure, this NVictria project is another steampunk triumph.
Steampunk and vintage technology enthusiast Daniel Ross is back with another new addition to the ongoing NVictria project: an LED-based persistence of vision (POV) display with bonus Nixie tubes, dubbed the Tachyscope 1.0.
"This is my version of a circa-1880 animated-picture moving images machine," Ross explains of his creation, which is housed in a custom wooden cabinet and uses a frying pan as its base. "It has two serial input ports that can either display on the white or blue LED displays."
The core design is of a persistence of vision (POV) display, which spins a series of LEDs rapidly while turning them on and off in a configurable pattern to "draw" a larger image in the air. In Ross' case, the project uses 18 surface-mount LEDs for the two displays, one blue and one white. These are driven by a pair of Microchip ATmega328 microcontrollers and fitted to the "spinner" unit — housed in an upcycled frying pan and rotated at high speed with a motor.
Elsewhere in the cabinet is a control system and a Nixie tube display, featuring another pair of ATmega328 microcontrollers and a 180V power supply to drive the vacuum tube display. Finally, there's another ATmega328 acting as a serial communication system — accepting input from a connected teletype or other system for display on the POV LEDs. "I send serial data via optocouplers," Ross explains "to minimize noise induced faults."
The project is the latest in Ross' NVictria work, a steampunk-inspired project which began as a mash-up of two typewriters — one from 1903 and one from 1988 — but soon turned into a fully-functional teletype terminal with individually-addressable LEDs under each key cap, a swing-out display, and a speech synthesis system. Like the main NVictria itself, the display has an aesthetic appeal — from its home-etched-and-drilled PCBs to customized etched brass plating.
A full write-up is available on Ross' Instructables page, with more information available on his YouTube channel.