DIY engineer builds a 'flying Las Vegas Sphere' with a POV display
DIY engineer and YouTuber Erik Spijk has uploaded a video to his channel Concept Crafted Creations, showcasing a unique drone called Zippy. It was a failed project from 2017, which he says took him over a year of designing and testing to finally fly.
Zippy is a drone with a POV (persistence of vision) display, consisting of a ring of 144 individual LEDs. This display creates an illusion of a solid image by spinning the ring of LEDs very quickly and turning on and off at precise intervals. As the ring spins, the rapid light patterns blend together in the viewer’s eye, making text or graphics appear to float in mid-air.
To make the display spin, he used a motor and a gear system attached to the drone's shaft. This made it a stability nightmare as the drone also spun in opposite direction to the display. To fix this, he attached two propellers to the shaft spinning in the same direction as the display, counteracting the spin from the gear system, thereby keeping the drone's shaft in place.
With that out of the way, he redesigned the main body of the drone, adding 8 propellers for flying and a landing gear. In the end the drone flew, and the display worked fine.
Source(s)
Concept Crafted Creations (linked above)
