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Materials needed

I know that the POV (persistance of vision) LED display has been on hold for quite a while, due to lack of interests of the friends who promised to help in the first place. I have still been thinking about doing this project all by myself instead, but I still need to have a few tools before I’ll be ready to start. One of those most crucial tools would be a multimeter. My previous one was stolen. Ok, I know that’s not a good ecxuse because it got stolen about 6 years ago, but well… 🙂

One other tool I needed was an osciloscope. I was thinking that this tool would be quite hard to obtain for a reasonable price, but against all odds it was easier than the multimeter. Now I’m in possession of a dual channel, 100MHZ Philips scope. The device is really good, but I don’t understand all the options of the trigger circuit. One turn down: there were no test probes included with the second hand scope, so I still need to buy those.

Further I need to find a electronic engineering program that would allow me to design and simulate the schematic, without spending thousands of euros, I need test print boards to make the prototypes, I need the chips and components (plus reserve components to replace those that fizz or bang)… Lot’s of things before I can start making a mechanical design, and have a stable rotating LED display.

So you see, the project isn’t cancelled, only delayed 🙂

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OCC22

OCC has yet again proven itself to be the leading LAN party organization (at least as far as I can compare) last weekend. Even on this 22nd edition (has it really been going on this long?) the OCC crew has shown the same dedication and moral as if it was the very first LAN party, and they were all 16 years old again.

The Internet had a few hick-ups, but who needs Internet when you can play Battlefield2 or Trackmania Nations on a LAN server? A ftp server containing the latest patches for the popular games (or at least the games where there are compos for) could limit the usage of Internet to MSN only.

I heard some complaints about long waiting lines on the food shop. I didn’t experience that myself, I barely ate anything that weekend Smile.

To the clans that were sitting next to us (ZWAM and Unreadable), thanks for making this OCC edition as fun as it was! Too bad we lost the quiz, we didn’t even get close to Unreadable this time, maybe we do game better when we are completely wasted… Wink I also wanted to do that “Shear Panic” boardgame compo, too bad it got cancelled…

Next one up would be FoM9.0 in Sint-Niklaas on June 29th…

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Fu-LAN 6

Last weekend I organised the 6th edition of Fu-LAN. Not as the LAN leader this time, but just as a member of the crew.

Thinking back on this edition fills me with mixed emotions: all patrons say that this edition was not the best ever, but yet is was still great. Ok there were a few annoying problems like the traditional compo failure and the internet gateway crashes (and me being sober was apparently a set back for most of the attendees), but no one really experienced that to make the LAN less great. I hear nice words like: relaxed, nice people, friendly crew, etc… The racing seats from Intel were a great attraction, and with only 40 gamers, everyone had the chance to play with them.

On the other end of the bar, among the fellow crew members, I hear a total different story. We made this LAN a partial success, yet we didn’t achieve the goal of 50 gamers, and we didn’t have any fun organising this event. All work and no play. We were always trying to solve problems, prepare food, running around senseless, or just trying to get some rest. I didn’t have the time to do anything fun, or talk to my friends, or mingle among the gamers, or get wasted… We will need to make some serious changes, or no one will want to start organising Fu-LAN 7.

Contradictory, this was the most efficient Fu-LAN ever. We were set up on Friday, and cleaned up on Sunday in record speeds, all thanks to great help from our friends. To all who assisted in making this LAN party become a reality: thank you very much! It wouldn’t have been possible without all your help.

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Panic1 @ OCC21.bis

{mosimage} November 3rd to November 5th: OCC21, take 2.

After the cancellation of the original OCC21 edition early august 2006, OCC was shrouded under a dark shadow. The forum was shut down for about a month to protect the crews moral from ranting gamers, and rumours about the end of this monumental LAN party organisation were all over the LAN scene. The OCC crew always said that cancelling the OCC21 edition was not the end, but just an emergency solution to lacking participations and an unevitable financial disaster. Well, the crew came through, and OCC21.bis is a fact. This weekend in Temse and I will be there. Return later for a full report on what happened at this revival edition (if I still remember what happened when I wake up on Monday, I have a tendency to get really drunk at OCC LAN parties)…

* UPDATE *

Click “Read More” to read the entire report.

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Nick, get well soon!

A dear friend of mine has had a serioius motorcycle accident last monday evening. The results are quite devastating:

  • broken chestbone
  • 4 broked ribs
  • broken collarbone
  • 5 broken vertebrates
  • both lungs collapsed
  • light concussion
  • damage to the heart, severity unknown

No one else was involved in this tragid accident.

Nick, buddy: stick in there and get well soon.

Continue reading “Nick, get well soon!”

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Night of the Proms 2006

Night of the Proms 2006, in stead of turning into another display of the effect of classical music on male emotions, this edition of the Night of the Proms was by far the best one I have ever expierenced.

Yeah: the singers were great, the music was great, but this is not why it felt so special this time, the singers are always great, the music is always perfect, no this time it was something more. And I’m pretty sure that feeling is related to those girls having a great party just next to us. 😉

Lief and co: I hope to meet you all again very soon!

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POV rotating leds – Part 1

A few friends and I have come up with the bold idea of doing something fun with the electronics skills we picked up at school, and we decided to make a rotating led display. This would be an array of leds, mounted perpendicoulous on a spinning rod, switching on and off very fast in a predefined pattern. Because of the slowness of the eye, the pattern of leds should remain clearly visible when it moves across the plane of sight, this phenomenon is know as persistence of vision (POV). This pattern can be anything from letters, words and sentences to entire pictures, depending on the size and complexity of the electronics.
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Panic1 @ FoM

After the cancellation of OCC21 at the beginning of August, I lived in fear and terror that this would be the first summer in years without any LAN party. But there it was: my ticket to a happy ending after all: Frag-o-Matic 8.1!

And it came just in the nick of time, the summer is almost over. I have never been at a FoM LAN party before, but I have heard alot about it. Some are really positive, others just hate it. So I arrived at this LAN party with mixed expectations and a very critical mindset.
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