benholmen

6 ms·

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Recap: I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display(benholmen.com)
4 points by benholmen 1y ago|1 comments
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by benholmen 1y ago
A few weeks ago my ridiculous kilopixel wooden pixel display went a little crazy on the internet. I wrote about the response and the experience as a whole, and feature some of the art that was drawn on my display.
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by benholmen 1y ago
I had some down time when the Y axis stepper motor managed to unplug itself overnight!
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by benholmen 1y ago
Oh yeah I love split flaps! Even considered them for this project but they're cost prohibitive and that idea is already out there. The sound those things make is just perfect.
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by benholmen 1y ago
Hey, I know you! Thanks for checking it out, looking forward to seeing you at the next PHP×MSP!
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by benholmen 1y ago
$250!
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by benholmen 1y ago
Definitely! I scaled up to 3×21 to validate some things and immediately broke a lot of what I thought would work. I tested a 1×10 grid of the wooden pixels to try out some different variations as well.
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by benholmen 1y ago
I love this so much! Will it be mounted so that gravity makes the pins fall back down or do you need a retraction mechanism?
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by benholmen 1y ago
It was indeed < 1 day
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by benholmen 1y ago
I love this project! I was well on my way with the kilopixel when I find him or it would have given me pause. He's optimizing for some very different things though.
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by benholmen 1y ago
Thanks for thinking through it! I've found that moving left-right is a little noisier and has a little vibration - up-down is smoother. However, it's not that noisy and it'd be fun to experiment with different algorithms for
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by benholmen 1y ago
I was extremely pleased with that discovery! Needed something a little grippy, pliable yet firm, and disposable.
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by benholmen 1y ago
I think the issue is that I'm streaming to disk with ffmpeg and recording at 5 fps to save space. OBS must be locked to the same frame rate since it's sharing the webcam? My original concept included two webcams, one for OBS, one
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by benholmen 1y ago
Western Wisconsin, Eau Claire. It's beautiful here
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by benholmen 1y ago
Pretty quiet! I spent some time figuring out how to make sure the stepper motors don't whine (the answer is microstepping and decent motor controllers). The pixel turning is very quiet unless it misses slightly, then it makes a clunk.
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by benholmen 1y ago
Rozin was a direct influence on me! Seeing his stuff ~10 years ago got me thinking about unorthodox displays.
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by benholmen 1y ago
This is incredible! I can appreciate how much work it took to make this happen. Well done! I was recently in the presence of some linotype machines from the 1800s and it's so good to be humbled by the achievements of people who came be
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by benholmen 1y ago
Genius. I'll do this when I install it in my Zoom background and take it off the internet
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by benholmen 1y ago
Oh I kinda love the idea of drawing the next one based on the pixel diff! Would be fun to game that queue.
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by benholmen 1y ago
TTFP will surely be < 1 day
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by benholmen 1y ago
That it, the method will forever be called the Vanna White Method
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by benholmen 1y ago
Yes! I have an RGB sensor that could handle that, but it's more bulky than the simple IR on/off sensor I went with. Could be four colors, or four shades of a color.
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by benholmen 1y ago
y'know, I've been excited / feared that Bad Apple would show up. The good news is a lot of frames would probably just be a few pixels to change from the previous frame, so some might draw really quickly. Basically you want to
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by benholmen 1y ago
I think I might put this in my friend's coffee shop but I'll restrict access to people in the coffee shop. Not going to let the internet get a hold of that. In addition to the user-controlled modes I also have ambient modes. My fa
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by benholmen 1y ago
I don't think I want to think of the actual cost per pixel - especially the cost of my time! I have deliberately avoided accounting the final cost
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Show HN: I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display(benholmen.com)
1145 points by benholmen 1y ago|144 comments
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by benholmen 13y ago
Which biography is that? I see a few on Amazon.
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by benholmen 14y ago
Do you have a source for that?
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by benholmen 14y ago
Similarly, IE9 allows you to select IE7, IE8, IE9, and IE9 Compatibility Mode. In my experience these browser modes are not identical to their stand-alone counterparts. If you are serious about finding and fixing layout bugs for IE7/IE8 use
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by benholmen 14y ago
Ben Krasnow is a peripheral hardware designer (and all-around hacker) that recently went to Valve to work on "Top Secret" projects. Previously he developed specialized input devices for use around MRI machines so I assume his "Top Secret" p

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