This is my first real project involving a PIC where I am not using anyone else’s plans or designs.

So what is Bicycle POV?
POV is an abbreviation for Persistence Of Vision, which is a phenomena experienced by humans that causes an after-image of an object to remain, even though the object has moved.

For example, if something is moving fast, say, a spinning wheel, it will appear to be stationary, or it will appear to be moving much more slowly then it actually is.

For a better example, see Wikipedia

Bicycle POV exploits this phenomena to write text (such as your speed, how far you’ve travelled and anything else you desire) on your bicycle wheel as you ride.

Hardware
The brains of Bicycle POV are a PIC 16F88 microcontroller.
Currently, I am using green LED’s, but I have some nice blue super-brights which I will put in the final device.
Version 2 will include a hall effect sensor for determining wheel speed and resynchronising the text.

Software
The firmware was written using MikroBASIC.
To assist in working out the code for lettering, I am using a simple VB6 application consisting of a set of tick-boxes. The desired letter is formed by ticking and unticking the boxes and the code is generated.

Here is a video of version 1 in action.