Let’s be honest, SSDs dominate the market when it comes to internal storage, but traditional hard drives shouldn’t be underestimated just yet. Today, Ben, the mastermind behind Ben Makes Everything, presents an impressive project that puts old HDDs to good use.With a little ingenuity and a lot of patience, he portable laser text projector.
executives of pure storage They predict that HDDs will be obsolete by 2028, but they clearly haven’t considered the potential for laser text projection on older hard drives. The unit is battery powered and portable, and can also be wirelessly connected via Bluetooth. Text messages can be seen from distances over 90 feet. For safety reasons, keep the light away from your eyes.
Ben has created a video detailing the process of creating the project. It took many tries to get the final version he was happy with, but the results were worth the effort. By the end of the project, he settled on using a green laser that was much more powerful and more visible than other laser wavelengths.
The HDD uses a brushless motor. This rotation is essential for creating text effects. Ben designed the mirror array from scratch using his Fusion 360 which rotates using HDD motors. An Arduino is thrown into the mix to help control the array. The green laser has a heatsink and comes with its own driver board that can be used to interpret the input signal.
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A laser flashes against the mirror, creating a line. These horizontal lines are used to build letters and form text. Ben details how the code works in the original project video. He highly recommends checking it out to get a better idea of how lasers work in creating text.
If you want to see this amazing hard drive driven laser text projector in action, check out the original video shared at YouTube.We also recommend ben makes everything For more cool projects and future works.
