Intro
While I'm usually busy with larger projects, sometimes I get fed up with them and get the need to just tinker a bit with a small project which will take at most half a day or something. This is one of them.
For a long time, I had the idea that a led-fan must be able to do something more than just give off a static light and move air. You've got moving parts, you've got a precise position read-out (the RPM wire of the fan), you've got a light-source that can be modulated... there must be something that can be done with that.
While I haven't found an use for a led-fan yet, the thinking process did give me another idea: It's possible to create a steady image of a fan using a stroboscope, which is nothing more than a device to create precisely-timed flashes of light. By adjusting the timing, one can make the image move clockwise and counterclockwise and in such a way adjust the angle it is in. Now, what would happen if we glue a paper needle to the fan? You could then in theory with some logic, put that needle in any angle you'd wish.
Thinking in that direction, I soon got the idea of creating a clock in such
a way: make a red, a green and a blue 'hand' and by lighting up the three dies
of an RGB-led, you can control exactly at what angle the image of every hand
shows up. Apart from the hands, the fan itself doesn't need to be modified: the
led, in conjunction with a microcontroller, does all the work.
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