Mosaic
Well-Known Member
Hi all:
I made a mistake while doing the PWM for dimmer control with a 4 digit 7 seg. display and I got an interesting effect.
I believe it can be useful as a highlighting technique.
Rather than run the PWM dimmer from the same timebase as the strobe routine, you can run it from a slightly different time base or from a dynamic time base once the time bases are within say 20-50% of each other.
What happens is u get a modulating beat (wave) pattern occurring , this shows up as a bright band passing across the digits. If u have a sensor feeding the PIC u can actually have the band change speed based on the sensor value, by using the sensor value to alter the timebase.
I think it could be useful for alarm functions as peripheral vision is disturbed by this odd wave effect on the display. It attracts attention even if u r not looking directly at the display.
BTW, u can't simulate this....it's gotta be done on a real prototype.
It's also a useful way to show that data is changing rapidly (fast moving band) while displaying 1/2 sec legible readout snapshots on the 4 digit display, eg RPM.
I made a mistake while doing the PWM for dimmer control with a 4 digit 7 seg. display and I got an interesting effect.
I believe it can be useful as a highlighting technique.
Rather than run the PWM dimmer from the same timebase as the strobe routine, you can run it from a slightly different time base or from a dynamic time base once the time bases are within say 20-50% of each other.
What happens is u get a modulating beat (wave) pattern occurring , this shows up as a bright band passing across the digits. If u have a sensor feeding the PIC u can actually have the band change speed based on the sensor value, by using the sensor value to alter the timebase.
I think it could be useful for alarm functions as peripheral vision is disturbed by this odd wave effect on the display. It attracts attention even if u r not looking directly at the display.
BTW, u can't simulate this....it's gotta be done on a real prototype.
It's also a useful way to show that data is changing rapidly (fast moving band) while displaying 1/2 sec legible readout snapshots on the 4 digit display, eg RPM.
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