POV Display System

A hobby art project creating beautiful spinning LED displays using Persistence of Vision.

What is This?

A Persistence of Vision (POV) display creates images by spinning LEDs fast enough that your eye blends them into a continuous picture. This project combines:

• Rotating LED arrays - 3 arms with 40 LEDs total, creating a radial display
• 10+ visual effects - Rainbow spirals, Perlin noise, test patterns, and more
• Real-time rendering - Calculates what to display based on rotation angle
• Wireless power - Inductive coil eliminates slip rings

Hardware

LED Display Controller (ESP32-S3)

Component	Part
MCU	Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3
LEDs	HD107S (40 total: 13 + 13 + 14 per arm)
IMU	MPU-9250 (accelerometer/gyroscope)
Position Sensor	A3144 Hall Effect Sensor
Power	5V wireless inductive coil

Motor Controller (ESP32-S3-Zero)

Component	Part
MCU	ESP32-S3-Zero
Motor Driver	L298N H-Bridge
Input	VS1838B IR Receiver
Status	RGB LED indicator
Communication	ESP-NOW (bidirectional with LED display)

CAD Model

Full mechanical design available on OnShape:

View CAD Model

Quick Start

Both projects use uv + PlatformIO:

# LED Display
cd led_display
uv sync
uv run pio run -e seeed_xiao_esp32s3
uv run pio run -e seeed_xiao_esp32s3 -t upload

# Motor Controller
cd motor_controller
uv sync
uv run pio run
uv run pio run -t upload

CLI Tools

# From project root
uv sync
pov telemetry status    # Check motor controller state
pov telemetry dump      # Download telemetry CSVs

Project Status

System	Status	Operating Range
LED Display	Operational	700-2800 RPM
Motor Controller	Operational	240-1489 RPM
ESP-NOW Integration	Operational	IR forwarding, telemetry exchange

Documentation

• Project Structure - Codebase layout and key files
• LED Display Docs - Architecture, timing analysis, effect system
• Motor Controller Docs - Calibration, datasheets
• IR Control Spec - Remote control implementation

Photos