By Andrew Liszewski
Don Stratton claims to have originally come up with the idea to make a miniature LED POV (persistence of vision) Christmas tree but before he could bring his idea to fruition somebody else beat him to it. Not to be dismayed Don felt his own concept would produce a better final result so he went ahead and built it.
His tree is powered by two seperate 9-volt batteries with one being used to run the motor while the other is used to power the 12 spinning LED lights. While he would have preferred to power the whole thing with a single battery it would have meant making his own contact brush system like a DC motor uses to get power to the spinning section. Since that would have been more trouble than it was worth he decided to just give the LEDs their own 9-volt which in the end worked out well since the battery also serves as a counterbalance to the spinning rig.
While Don does detail the construction process of the tree on his site it’s not exactly a step-by-step breakdown. However the concepts and photos he provides are probably more than enough for any one who’s electronically-inclined to cook up their own.
(On a side note I think I just set the record for the most acronyms ever used in a single OhGizmo post title. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Academy… and my parents… and…)
[ POV Christmas Tree ] VIA [ MAKE: Blog ]
“it would have meant making his own contact brush system like a DC motor uses to get power to the spinning section” or he could have just put the motor balanced on top of the pole pointing downwards… and ‘rotate the base’