Hard Drive Platter Clock

Ian Matthew has put his genius to work by coming up with a hard drive platter clock, where a set of flashing colored LEDs will show through as it spins to tell the time. Powered by a PIC18F252 controller, you will be able to modify the custom software to adjust the LED patterns accordingly. Read the wise words of Ian below to get a better understanding on how it works.

“The clock works because the human eye does not see frequencies above 60 or so as blinking, but as a solid color. This is how we see a TV picture as a full image and not a series of lines being drawn across it. At 5400 RPM this drive spins just over 90 times a second, plenty fast enough to fool the eye into thinking it sees solid hands and not a spinning bar of light.”

Too bad this isn’t going to be sold anywhere.