TinyProjector, Small Portable Character Projector
TinyProjector is a very small portable character projector based on inexpensive laser diodes. It projects a single line of text onto nearby walls and tables from portable and wearable devices like cellphone and PocketPCs that will be connected via wireless serial connection.
The current prototype uses PIC microcontroller, PIC16F877, and is capable of displaying 8 characters, each consisting of an 8×5 pixel matrix. A micro motor with a single swiveling servo arm, making a continuous full 360-degree rotation, drives the deflection mirror, resulting in a 38-degree left-right sweep. This leads to an unusually high overall laser projection angle of 104 degrees. Closed-loop system with IR LED and photodiode is used by prototype.
Stefan Marti, project designer, said that he has demonstrated a two-way serial port connection with both Palm PDAs and Java enabled cell phone. From either device, arbitrary text can be sent to the projector and is displayed; in addition to that, preset text lines stored on the projector itself can be triggered from these devices. Click here for latest update on this project.
