Propeller Message Display with

TemperatureIndicator
Sarthak r. Shah and Abhimanyu k. Varde
Here we describe a microcontroller-based propeller display that displays any message
sent to it via hyper-terminal of a personal computer. Moreover, a temperature sensing
IC (TMP125) is mounted onto the propeller display to display temperature in real time. It
gives a 360-degree view and displays several characters in a revolving circular path
using just eight LEDs. It is a cost-effective, attractive way of display that reduces the
cost and complexity while making the whole system dynamic and energy-efficient. The
main highlight o this project is a vertical facing display with true 360-degree viewing
angle.

Fig. 1: Prototype

The basic idea of this project comes from the concept of persistence of vision. This
phenomenon is related to vision capability of the human eye, where an afterimage is
thought to persist for approximately 1/25th of a second. So if someone is observing
images at a rate of 25 per second, they appear to form a continuous picture.
In this display, the LED strip moves so fast that one is able to see a matrix of LEDs. The
time of a single rotation is divided into several shorter time periods during which each
individual LED is kept on/off to display different characters. Temperature sensed by the
temperature IC is sent to the controller via SPI bus.

Fig. 2: Block diagram of the propeller message display with temperature indicator

Fig. 2 shows block diagram of the propeller display with temperature indicator. The LED
strip is mounted vertically such that when the motor rotates, the strip also rotates in a
circular fashioncreating a true 360-degree display. The message to be displayed is sent
via RS232 interface using hyper-terminal. The message is displayed for 30 seconds and
then the display switches to current temperature that is fetched from the temperature
sensor. Interrupts are generated by the IR sensor-beam interrupter assembly.
Circuit and working
Fig. 3 shows the circuit of the propeller display. The circuit is built around microcontroller
P89V51RD2 (IC1), temperature sensor TMP125 (IC2), MAX232 (IC3) and a few discrete
components. Port pins P1.0 through P1.7 are connected to CON2, which further needs to
be connected to CON3 of the LED strip comprising LED1 through LED8. These LEDs form
a circular display when rotated very fast.

Fig. 3: Circuit of the propeller message display with temperature indicator

Microcontroller. The heart of the system is microcontroller P89V51RD2. The P89V51RD2

is an 8-bit 80C51 microcontroller with 64kB Flash and 1024 bytes of data RAM. It
features three 16-bit timers/counters, programmable watchdog timer, eight interrupt
sources with four priority levels, serial peripheral interface (SPI) and enhanced UART,
programmable counter array with PWM and capture/compare functions, and four 8-bit
input/output (I/O) ports. It has an on-chip oscillator and clock circuitry, which is
operated up to 40MHz crystal. It supports 12 clocks per machine cycle (default) and 6
clocks per machine cycle mode, which can be selected via software. The Flash program
memory supports both parallel programming as well as serial programming.
Power-on reset is provided by the combination of resistor R9 and capacitor C8. Switch
S1 is used for manual reset. An 11.0592MHz crystal (XTAL1) along with two 33pF
capacitors (C6 and C7) provides basic clock frequency to the microcontroller.

Temperature sensor with digital output. TMP125 is an SPI-compatible temperature

sensor available in tiny SOT23-6 package. Requiring no external components, it is capable
of measuring temperatures within accuracy of 2C over a temperature range of 25C to
+85C and within 2.5C accuracy over 40C to +125C. Low supply current and a
supply range from 2.7 V to 5.5 V make TMP125 an excellent candidate for low-power
applications. TMP125 is ideal for extended thermal measurement in a variety of
communication, computer, consumer, environmental, industrial and instrumentation
applications. Port pins P2.0 through P2.2 of IC1 are used to interface the temperature
sensor as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 4: Interrupt sensor

Download source
code:http://www.electronicsforu.com/electronicsforu/circuitarchives/my_documents/my
_files/Propeller_Display.zip
Interrupt sensor. A sensor is built (see Fig. 4) using IR transmitter (IRTX1) and receiver
(IRRX1) to generate interrupts. In each revolution, as the beam is interrupted, the
sensor generates a positive pulse, which is inverted with the help of a BC547 npn
transistor (T1). The inverted pulse is fed to controller port pin P3.2. The microcontroller
executes an interrupt routine when a pulse arrives.
The interrupt routine measures the total time taken for one revolution, divides it by 360
and stores the result in another timer, configured in auto-reload mode. Now the timer
overflows after tiny intervals of time. Each time it overflows, the next stored value is
called from the lookup table and displayed (refer Fig. 5).
Alternatively, sensor MOC7811 can be used in place of the arrangement that is made
using separate IR transmitter and receiver.

Fig. 5: Interrupt routine

Working of the project is simple. Connect the computer to the system using serial port
(COM PORT). Open the hyper-terminal and enter the text you want to display (see
construction and testing for details). Switch on the motor. You will see the text appear in
a short time. The system switches between text and temperature, displaying both for 30
seconds each on the revolving display.
Mechanics
Mechanical arrangement is the most critical part of this project. An AC motor capable of
around 1400 revolutions per minute (rpm) is used. The PCB on which the components
are soldered is cut into a specific shape in order to improve aerodynamics and reduce
any vertical movement. Eight bright LEDs are used, which are mounted on another
board that is attached to the main PCB at right angle.
The critical part here is to get the power to the rotating board. There are various ways of
doing it. One simple way is to use rechargeable batteries, as shown in the circuit
diagram, and mount them over the board such that they dont come out when the motor
rotates. The rugged way of doing this is to use an AC motor with a double shaft. A stepdown transformer and a bridge rectifieralong with a 7805 IC can be used to get 5 V from
the mains supply voltage. Carbon brush, spring and copper wound bush are used to
bring the 5V supply on the main revolving PCB as shown in Fig. 6. The motor should be
fitted onto a metal frame in order to reduce vibration of the system and get a smooth
operation when the motor revolves.

Fig. 6: Carbon brush arrangement

The number of characters that can be displayed depends on radius, i.e., the distance of
the LED strip from the centre. It does not depend on the number of LEDs, which is the
main advantage of this system. The main thing to note here is that the speed of rotation
directly depends on the radius. A bigger radius would mean a higher angular velocity,
which may result in more vibrations. Hence care should be taken not to increase the
radius length too much.
Software
The software is written in C language and compiled using Keil compiler. Mentioned
below are some important functions and their role:
void serial_int (void) interrupt 4 using 0. Interrupt service routine for serial interrupt. It
stores indices of the characters entered, by comparing with the ASCII codes array.
void introutine(void) interrupt 0 using 2. Interrupt service routine for external interrupt
0. It is basically a position decoder, which starts timer interrupt while switching between
displaying the message and the temperature.
void timer0(void) interrupt 1 using 3. Interrupt service routine for timer 0 (auto reload
mode). It basically displays characters or temperature depending on flag bits, along with
blanks in front of the data for scrolling.
Construction and working
An actual-size, single-side PCB for the controller board is shown in Fig. 7 and its
component layout in Fig. 8. PCB for the LED strip is shown in Fig. 9 and its component
layout in Fig. 10. Suitable connectors are provided on both the PCBs to connect them to
each other. To avoid loose connection, it is better that you directly solder the wires at
CON2 and CON2 to connect both the PCBs.

Fig. 7: An actual-size, single-side PCB for the controller board

Fig. 8: Component layout for the PCB in Fig. 7

A proper weight balance of the main PCB is essential before mounting it on the shaft.
After approximately finding the centre such that weights on either side of it are the
same, a hole can be drilled in the PCB for fittingit on the shaft. Aerodynamic shape of the
PCB also helps to reduce vibrations during the rotation.
There are two critical factors in the hardware assembly of this project: One is the voltage
supply that has to be transferred at the top of the board. The other is smooth rotation of
the PCB that is mounted on the top of a motor shaft. Any miscalculation of the weight
would result in an unbalanced system and the required rpm would not be achieved.
Moreover, LEDs have to switch in less than 1/25th of a second, which means that in one
whole minute it would be close to 1500 times. Hence this is the minimum effective rpm
of the motor that has to be obtained after fiting the PCB and the components on the
shaft.

Fig. 9: An actual-size, single-side PCB for the LED strip

Fig. 10: Component layout for the PCB in Fig. 9

To test the circuit, check test points for voltages as per the test point table. For
functional testing, follow below-mentioned steps:
1. Connect the COM port of the computer to the display system (refer Fig. 3). You can

also use a USB-to-serial converter

2. Place the interrupt sensor such that the beam is interrupted by the beam interrupter
3. Open any hyper-terminal and type the first letter (all upper case
4. Wait for change in the pattern of glowing LEDs
5. Enter the second letter and wait again for the changing pattern
6. Enter the remaining text simi-larly
7. When the text is complete, enter space and wait for the changing pattern
8. Press Enter. All LEDs should glow
9. Wait until the LEDs turn off. Now start the motor. The text should appear in some
time on the circular display