For that added bit of bling
 

damn... i saw this last night and meant to post it... ahhh well.

Still cool... seems like a nice summer time project to me.

can you only see the image correctly when the wheel is not spinning?

????wtf

HAHA, sorry, i guess my joke wasnt that funny.

For serious y'all! Not for my bike but I'd like to see it on the street. It's neato.

i want to do this, but its nearly $50 to build one board. and with one board, you need to be going 15mph to see it well. 2 boards would drop it down to 10mph.

How long before someone programs one of those gizmos to display the NJS stamp?

^^^^

HAHAHA... I think I'd pee my pants if i saw that rolling down the street.

but would they need a matchingwhite hat or white belt for that one?

I've actually made a few of these.
They're totally badass in a DIY kind of way.

Traffic comes to a halt to stare at my wheels.

Setting up the hall sensor to get an accurate readout is a bit of a pain though, and sometimes they glitch out and the image turns into a pile of pixels, only to reappear after a few more revolutions.

Also, I moved the battery packs off the board, so that they can be on the other side of the wheel, to balance them a bit better.

They also require conformal coating if you are ever going to run them in the elements.

Generally I have them programmed with the following bitmaps:
http://static.flickr.com/20/71944079_db43870cbf.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/35/71944078_236ee319ab.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/20/71944077_773106ea49.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/35/71944076_77a19c2e5b.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/35/71944075_19ec98de3b.jpg

I tried making a good '******' bitmap, but it was too hard to make out on the bike.

Saw this on a girl's bike on the Alameda/SF ferry. It looked great, although definitely not weather proof.

so it seems you could build a front wheel with one of these deaiies and only use it in nice wheather without much hassle?

that would be freakin cool for a night ride! i really like the pacman ghost!

so does it spin or stay upright?

Good tip on the remote battery pack. Here I was thinking about making two just to balance the wheel out.

the whole thing is that the image itself is never projected in its entirety, the spinning and the consequent light trails that the eye perceives are what makes the image whole. so yeah, it stays upright.

lyledriver, any photos of those images actually on the wheel? i can imagine that last one might look really crazy

i showed my friend he is buying a kit right now.

These are so tempting, but I seen more broken ones than working ones. Like bike computers but worse.
Like everything else about bikes, they are not new, but they are enough of a Pain that you just skip it and get back to the basics.

Still, so cool, you want to try it anyway.

Also they don't work at really slow speeds, too bad.

Unless this newer model has improved in some remarkable new way.

from their site...

* Can be used with road, mountain or BMX wheels!
* 30 LEDs on each side (22 for BMX) x 256 radial pixels
* Runs on 2-3 AA batteries for 10 hours or more, assuming 3000mAh alkalines and 50% image coverage.
* Can run on rechargable NiMH AA's
* Comes with high-brightness red LEDs, but can be upgraded with green, blue, amber, etc.
* Automatically shuts off after 3 minutes
* wxPython based software runs on any Linux or Windows PC with a parallel port
* Design is all through-hole parts, perfect for a first time kit builder.
* With one spoke, total persistence at 15mph. Two spokes, 10mph. Three spokes, 7mph. (Assuming a mountain bike wheel). Looks cool even if not completely persistant.
* Great for safe riding at night, provides excellent side visibility.
* Playa-tested!

:D
that last one there...*playa- tested- that says it all... burning man crap not meant to last longer than a week or 13 days, probably looks really cool after 2 weeks without sleep, but not doing anything for me right here and now...

you can get hokey spokes but they only do patterns and text. this seems better and cheaper.
I've been wanting to do something like this with an all black beater bike, just for Critical Mass (when it gets dark in winter) and certain night rides.

has anyone tried to modify the real hokey spokes to be programmable, or is that completely out of the question. Also, is there an alternative to zip ties that would be easier to take on and off?