Arduino POV

I´ve been wanting to make a POV(Persistance of vision) device like the one that Ladyada sells on her site for a while now because I think that they are pretty cool. For those unfamiliar with POV devices, they use the fact that images or lights remain in your vision for a small amount of time after you first see them to make a moving column of lights write text by flashing them at a specific sequence. I found the code on the Arduino playground and just changed the test at the end of the program to say ¨NOT A BOMB¨. A little bit of a dig at the Boston police department. My device looked a whole lot more like a bomb than those that caused the ridonculous bomb scare in beantown. Anywho, the code can be seen below. I´ll try to get the pictures that Lee and I took at work the other day and post that ASAP.

/*
????????????????????????????????????????????
persistence of vision typography with arduino
michael zoellner - march 2006
http://i.document.m05.de

connect anodes (+) of 5 leds to digital ports of the arduino board
and put 20-50 ohm resistors from the cathode (-) to ground.

the letters are lookup tables consisting arrays width the dot status in y rows.
????????????????????????????????????????????
*/


// defining the alphabet
int _[] = {0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0,0};
int A[] = {0,1,1,1,1, 1,0,1,0,0, 0,1,1,1,1};
int B[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 1,0,1,0,1, 0,1,0,1,0};
int C[] = {0,1,1,1,0, 1,0,0,0,1, 1,0,0,0,1};
int D[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 1,0,0,0,1, 0,1,1,1,0};
int E[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 1,0,1,0,1, 1,0,1,0,1};
int F[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 1,0,1,0,0, 1,0,1,0,0};
int G[] = {0,1,1,1,0, 1,0,1,0,1, 0,0,1,1,0};
int H[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 0,0,1,0,0, 1,1,1,1,1};
int I[] = {0,0,0,0,1, 1,0,1,1,1, 0,0,0,0,1};
int J[] = {1,0,0,0,0, 1,0,0,0,1, 1,1,1,1,1};
int K[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 0,0,1,0,0, 0,1,0,1,1};
int L[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 0,0,0,0,1, 0,0,0,0,1};
int M[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 0,1,1,0,0, 0,1,1,1,1};
int N[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 1,0,0,0,0, 0,1,1,1,1};
int O[] = {0,1,1,1,0, 1,0,0,0,1, 0,1,1,1,0};
int P[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 1,0,1,0,0, 0,1,0,0,0};
int Q[] = {0,1,1,1,1, 1,0,0,1,1, 0,1,1,1,1};
int R[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 1,0,1,0,0, 0,1,0,1,1};
int S[] = {0,1,0,0,1, 1,0,1,0,1, 1,0,0,1,0};
int T[] = {1,0,0,0,0, 1,1,1,1,1, 1,0,0,0,0};
int U[] = {1,1,1,1,1, 0,0,0,0,1, 1,1,1,1,1};
int V[] = {1,1,1,1,0, 0,0,0,0,1, 1,1,1,1,0};
int W[] = {1,1,1,1,0, 0,0,1,1,0, 1,1,1,1,0};
int X[] = {1,1,0,1,1, 0,0,1,0,0, 1,1,0,1,1};
int Y[] = {1,1,0,0,0, 0,0,1,0,0, 1,1,1,1,1};
int Z[] = {1,0,0,1,1, 1,0,1,0,1, 1,1,0,0,1};
int colon[] = {0,0,0,0,0, 0,1,0,1,0, 0,0,0,0,0};

int letterSpace;
int dotTime;

void setup()
{
// setting the ports of the leds to OUTPUT
pinMode(2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(3, OUTPUT);
pinMode(4, OUTPUT);
pinMode(5, OUTPUT);
pinMode(6, OUTPUT);

// defining the space between the letters (ms)
letterSpace = 6;
// defining the time dots appear (ms)
dotTime = 3;

}

void printLetter(int letter[])
{
int y;

// printing the first y row of the letter
for (y=0; y<5; y++)
{
digitalWrite(y+2, letter[y]);
}
delay(dotTime);

// printing the second y row of the letter
for (y=0; y<5; y++)
{
digitalWrite(y+2, letter[y+5]);
}
delay(dotTime);

// printing the third y row of the letter
for (y=0; y<5; y++)
{
digitalWrite(y+2, letter[y+10]);
}
delay(dotTime);

// printing the sspace between the letters
for (y=0; y<5; y++)
{
digitalWrite(y+2, 0);
}
delay(letterSpace);
}

void loop()
{
// printing some letters
printLetter(N);
printLetter(O);
printLetter(T);
printLetter(_);
printLetter(A);
printLetter(_);
printLetter(B);
printLetter(O);
printLetter(M);
printLetter(B);
printLetter(_);

}