interesting component..maybe some uses for arcade builders...

[severdhed]

i found this while searching around the net for pc hardware...looks like something that may be usuful for some arcade projects, just thought i'd let you guys know.

http://www.xoxide.com/cooljag-pro-led-flash-120mmfan.html


it's a pc fan that allows you to program a message that it will display by blinking LEDS...  i'm getting ready to move so i dont have alot of arcade build time in the near future, but thought someone may be interested in this.

[Franco B]

Very cool 

I could imagine some  Pacman chasing ghosts and marching Space Invaders animations on those.

May have to grab a couple methinks 

[PacMon]

Whoa!!  I have several ideas for those fans.  Very cool indeed!   

[mattnb]

It would be neat to have the message change 'on the fly' and display information like the game you are playing and the year it came out or something.

[Franco B]

There is a review [here]. There are a few youtube videos too.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtfdR1jRRPY[/youtube]

I dont think you will be easily be able to program on the fly but I bet someone could figure it out. I think im going to control them with my pacdrive. You will only be able to turn the the sequence on and off but they should still look pretty cool.

[ChadTower]

Depends really on how it reads the pattern to use.  If it's just reading it out of a text file then you would only have to change the text file and then force a reload somehow.  If it's something you have to actively load onto the controller somehow, that may or may not be a problem, either.  It's probably a fairly simple thing to do in a PERL script either way depending on what type of event you want to trigger an image change.

[SavannahLion]

If it's something you have to actively load onto the controller somehow, that may or may not be a problem, either.  It's probably a fairly simple thing to do in a PERL script either way depending on what type of event you want to trigger an image change.

The box photo gives a hint and the review explains it in some detail. The data is written to an onboard controller. Depending on where the controller is and how the cable is jacked in, you'll likely not even be able to make changes on the fly for no other reason than the physical limitation of a spinning fan. Overcome that and everything else should fall into place.

Still a cool little accessory. Not a bad deal for $20 either. 49CFM seems a average though.

[ChadTower]

That doesn't really rule out the possibility.  A USB device tends to mount as a drive, yes?  If you look at the picture of the client it appears to be writing whatever format it uses out to a file called usbled.txt (in this instance, anyway).  If you were able to reverse engineer that format you could create those files yourself with a PERL script.  PERL is perfect for that - it is at its heart an Extraction and Reporting Language.  All that would be left then would be to find a way to dump that onto the controller from the command line.  If anything in this process is going to be the showstopper, that would be it, but I bet it could be done one way or another in the same PERL script. 

[Neverending Project]

Very cool 

I could imagine some  Pacman chasing ghosts and marching Space Invaders animations on those.

May have to grab a couple methinks 

Funny you should mention that...
Link

This is a kit for a bicycle wheel spoke, but there are certainly different kits out there...

[ChadTower]

I wonder how much that weighs.  That would be kick ass to use in my next race.

[ahofle]

Funny you should mention that...
Link

This is a kit for a bicycle wheel spoke, but there are certainly different kits out there...

Now that is cool.  I wonder how visible it is during the day?  I never ride at night.

[ChadTower]

Now that is cool.  I wonder how visible it is during the day?  I never ride at night.

My road bike is matte black... so I definitely try to stay off the road at night. 

[SavannahLion]

That doesn't really rule out the possibility.  A USB device tends to mount as a drive, yes?  If you look at the picture of the client it appears to be writing whatever format it uses out to a file called usbled.txt (in this instance, anyway).  If you were able to reverse engineer that format you could create those files yourself with a PERL script.  PERL is perfect for that - it is at its heart an Extraction and Reporting Language.  All that would be left then would be to find a way to dump that onto the controller from the command line.  If anything in this process is going to be the showstopper, that would be it, but I bet it could be done one way or another in the same PERL script. 

Perlmonk, I'm not saying software is going to be a problem. What I'm saying is that the programming on the fly needs to overcome an engineering obsticle. The cable looks like it's got three pins, so my (other) guess would be that programming is done through the three wire power cable for the fan. In which case, one would probably have to build an additional circuit that would switch between feeding power to the fan and programming the fan. Or, possibly even drawing power from the USB bus to power the fan? Did you notice that the reviewer stated:

Inside you have the fan, screws and power wire. Besides that standard affair, there's a USB stick, data transfer wire, and an installation CD. To program the unit, you hook the data transfer wire between the fan and the USB stick.

and

The only problem I had was it wouldn't let me 'Preview' or 'Demo All'. But no fear, I just burnt the info to the fan. Once removing the data cable, the fan was plugged in and everything worked out just fine.

The way the GUI is laid out, it looks like Preview/Demo All is some sort of fan emulation rather than running the fan itself.

[ChadTower]

We're talking about different aspects of the same project, of course.

[SavannahLion]

That's kind of my point. If you can't overcome the potential engineering hump, trying to tackle the software side is just going to be a dead end.

But yes, Perl would be what I would use to attack this too. Opens it up for alternate OSes.

[severdhed]

it may be a while until i get to mess with these things, but if anyone gets one and does something cool with it, please post pics and your impressions of the unit.

[Neverending Project]

I was thinking about this on my way to work this morning, just sorta daydreaming about how much it would cost to make a small run of some type of microcontroller based POV "wand" designed for arcade use. The parts would certainly be cheap enough, and a PCB would be cheap also - in large enough batches. A driver would be relatively easy to write, which could take the output from your front end of choice and send it to the serial/parallel/USB port of this the device (it could be designed to use any of these ports). So it seems like it could display the name of the game, number of credits, anything really.

But then I had a forehead smacking moment. If this is designed to be attached to a fan, or some other spinning unit, then communicating with it while in use might be a challenge. I mean if the thing is spinning, how is it going to be plugged into a COM/USB port on your PC?

Sure, we could get all "brainstormy" and come up with workarounds using phone-cord-spinny-thingys and such... but in order to make it cheap to buy/make and easy to use, it needs to be easily attached to a stock fan. Am I missing something?

This is why the unit needs to be pre-programmed, no?

**Edit: I just re-read SavannahLion's post... yup. You already said what I was thinking. You could use a bluetooth chip and communicate that way - but that adds significant cost, not to mention some additional weight on the PCB.

[Neverending Project]

Perlmonk, I'm not saying software is going to be a problem. What I'm saying is that the programming on the fly needs to overcome an engineering obsticle. The cable looks like it's got three pins, so my (other) guess would be that programming is done through the three wire power cable for the fan. In which case, one would probably have to build an additional circuit that would switch between feeding power to the fan and programming the fan. Or, possibly even drawing power from the USB bus to power the fan? ...

But the problem as I see it would still remain - even if you came up with a circuit to switch between power and serial communication. The three wires are most likely not even hooked up to the LEDs. They are probably powered from a battery on the "wand". How could the three-wire power cable even be connected to a spinning fan?

[SavannahLion]

Sure, we could get all "brainstormy" and come up with workarounds using phone-cord-spinny-thingys and such... but in order to make it cheap to buy/make and easy to use, it needs to be easily attached to a stock fan. Am I missing something?

This is why the unit needs to be pre-programmed, no?

**Edit: I just re-read SavannahLion's post... yup. You already said what I was thinking. You could use a bluetooth chip and communicate that way - but that adds significant cost, not to mention some additional weight on the PCB.

Yes. Exactly. My original speculation on how it was programmed is correct, the programming cable is plugged directly into the spinning portion of the fan. I was hoping that the fan was programmed through the three pin wire and it used some sort of simple rotating collar (kind of like a telephone line untangler). I thought maybe this was due to the circuit receiving power in some way. Anyways, this discussion got me annoyed so I went looking elsewhere and found what I was after.

The cable is a five pin adapter that plugs into the spinning portion of the fan.
There is no mention of a battery, I also don't think this is a viable source of power anyways. Who the ---fudgesicle--- wants to tear apart their PC fan just to change batteries?

Detailed review of the fan
Manual for the fan and software

And lastly, I've uploaded a picture of how the cable plugs into the fan. It comes from the Burnout PC review.

Forget about humping together a software solution, it has very limited use without solving the hardware issues.

[fixedpigs]

My road bike is matte black... so I definitely try to stay off the road at night. 

chad...

where are you...chicago...?

how'd you get a hold of that javelin...?

and you shouldn't be riding at night without lights regardless of what colour your bike is...

[Marak]

I thought you guys might like to see this.

[ChadTower]

chad...

where are you...chicago...?

how'd you get a hold of that javelin...?

and you shouldn't be riding at night without lights regardless of what colour your bike is...

I'm in MA.  Bought it right from Javelin... earlier this year they got out of the complete bike business and cleared out remaining stock at like 75% off.  Believe it or not I paid $220 for that bike.      Now they concentrate on frames, I think.