LED's, VAN TV's and Projection tagging

[tangent4ronpaul]

Have we got any EE's or EE students here?

Looking for someone to find a schematic or design a circuit for scrolling LCD screens, adaptable to multiple sizes – armband, small banners, etc. up to 4'x8' plywood boards, as well as develop instructions on how to build and program or interface it to a computer. Basing it on a PIC micro-controller would be ideal.

After that, if someone or a group is willing to buy LED's and electronic components in bulk (like fliers, they are a LOT cheaper in quantity) and put together kits that supporters can assemble.

He's something I wrote back at the beginning of February on the topic:

It is possible to convert a van or truck into a huge big screen TV on wheels, with the display visible to those outside. This is essentially a video billboard on wheels. See Make magazine, vol 8, p151-153. Convert as many as possible.


81 beltways
0.5M ppl per day each
40.5M ppl total
13.5 % of population

I have a feeling the video vans on overpasses or off on ramps and projectors would cause objection from the cops, claiming we were disrupting traffic. Consider if we made limited use of then and then on the eve of the IA or NH primary pull out 324 of them (8 per beltway) especially if we jammed/slowed traffic. Could probably get away with half that many. I'm betting something like that would make national news. (it would be hard to keep it a secret, unless a small group made them and the campaign as a whole was kept in the dark until the last minute).

Was also thinking how to do something almost as good but for a lot less money. I think a grid of LED's could be attached to some base - maybe even canvas, and used to stream messages and maybe very crude images depending on the density. That would be a lot less invasive to the vehicle used and could be shipped from state to state, as opposed to permanently modifying a van and transporting it. If it worked, it would be possible to FLOOD a city and less so a state with them in the days preceding an election.

I had more written up, but I'm not finding those files right now...


Some resources:

Van TV
http://www.make-digital.com/make-look-inside/vol08/?pg=159&liid=af262d8ec8&b=0&search=van+tv

LED
http://www.feeds4all.com/Item.aspx?ItemID=12596713
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/02/how_to_make_a_l_7.html
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/01/how_to_led_matr.html
http://wls.wwco.com/ledsigns/
http://www.gizmology.net/LEDs.htm
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=19#video (overpasses?)
Projecton tagging:
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=76#video
http://muonics.net/blog/index.php?postid=15
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=90#video
http://www.make-digital.com/make-look-inside/vol07/?pg=28&liid=ba166ef216&b=0&search=bruce+stirling+the+interventionists+make
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/1313232
https://secure.lumenlab.com/shop/product.php?id=38
http://www.lumenlab.com/diy/

Traffic patterns:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/aug99/traffic05.htm

Other political tech projects:
http://www.appliedautonomy.com/projects.html
http://research.eyebeam.org/projects

Nathan
tangent4ronpaul AT yahoo DOT com

[mdh]

Multi-LED displays are really easy to do. Even easier with a static set of text/etc. That's not EE, that's the kind of stuff I was doing at age 12. :P

LCD's on the other hand are a bit more involved. If you want a large TFT panel on the back-end, that gets pretty pricey, too.

[cujothekitten]

http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=76#video

That place rules.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Multi-LED displays are really easy to do. Even easier with a static set of text/etc. That's not EE, that's the kind of stuff I was doing at age 12. :P

LCD's on the other hand are a bit more involved. If you want a large TFT panel on the back-end, that gets pretty pricey, too.

On the LED end, the ideal would be something that could be distributed as a program or knopnix(SP?) like. so a technically illiterate person could put it in a laptop, type text and select how to display and at what rate or speed - that's ideal.

They do have multi-color and special purpose LED's, but the bright ones are getting cheaper - especially in bulk. Our local HS has one with great graphics and the highway department uses them out here - You REALLY notice those things!

Would you be interested in this project? It doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles. A base to work on would be great!

On the LCD's - follow the links. One of them has a tutorial on building them and sold parts, though that group has since started selling their designed and it's manufactured. The DIY kits use LCD screens cannibalized from laptops and projected through. The cost of these projectors has dropped to around $450 in the 2000 Lu range, though we're ideally looking for something in the 3000 - 4000 Lu range. The big screen TV van is via rear projection, not a huge LCD panel. The optical path is folded. Perhaps it could be spread further with a lens. Again, follow the links. The person in the Make article didn't glaze their projection surface well, though there is a paint that while on the expensive side, is specifically for rear projection screens and sold in relatively small quantities.

In considering modifications to a vehicle, on the plus side is that the operator gets a Home Theater system if they bring the unit in at night. Also, they end up with a viable business as these are used to promote venue's in Vancouver and Texas and could be easily be rented out. (camera inside of band, screen of what folks are missing outside).

This could be possible with back doors open to expose or replaced the screen without major modifications to the vehicle, but positioning for view would be harder.

Audio could be added with a low power radio transmitter, like those sold in kits commonly for low cost and flashing the frequency and a message to tune in periodically.

BRING YOUTUBE TO THE PEOPLE!

Nathan

[mdh]

On the LED end, the ideal would be something that could be distributed as a program or knopnix(SP?) like. so a technically illiterate person could put it in a laptop, type text and select how to display and at what rate or speed - that's ideal.

To make it reprogrammable, you're looking at throwing a serial port on the. No need for any livecd linux distro, you can create a Perl/Tk script or something along those lines that'll run on any operating system that can communicate over a serial interface. Serial interface support is real easy using pretty much any "hobbyist" grade microprocessor, Atmel makes some good ones as do a few other OEMs.


Would you be interested in this project? It doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles. A base to work on would be great!

Sure, where are you from? I'm more of a software person than a hardware person in general, and I don't have anything like a large van to really work with, so if you're even semi-local that'd make things a lot easier.


On the LCD's - follow the links. One of them has a tutorial on building them and sold parts, though that group has since started selling their designed and it's manufactured. The DIY kits use LCD screens cannibalized from laptops and projected through. The cost of these projectors has dropped to around $450 in the 2000 Lu range, though we're ideally looking for something in the 3000 - 4000 Lu range. The big screen TV van is via rear projection, not a huge LCD panel. The optical path is folded. Perhaps it could be spread further with a lens. Again, follow the links. The person in the Make article didn't glaze their projection surface well, though there is a paint that while on the expensive side, is specifically for rear projection screens and sold in relatively small quantities.

In considering modifications to a vehicle, on the plus side is that the operator gets a Home Theater system if they bring the unit in at night. Also, they end up with a viable business as these are used to promote venue's in Vancouver and Texas and could be easily be rented out. (camera inside of band, screen of what folks are missing outside).

This could be possible with back doors open to expose or replaced the screen without major modifications to the vehicle, but positioning for view would be harder.

Going a bit beyond my hardware expertise on the "building your own LCD" bit, but I'm always looking to expand my expertise so long as it doesn't cost me much money. ;)


Audio could be added with a low power radio transmitter, like those sold in kits commonly for low cost and flashing the frequency and a message to tune in periodically.

BRING YOUTUBE TO THE PEOPLE!

Nathan

Audio via RF transmission's real easy, I've done... um... radio broadcasting stuff before *cough*
Gotta be careful if you don't want to violate FCC regs though, which I'd say we probably don't in this case.

[tangent4ronpaul]

ck PM

-n