components. If you’re up for a challenge you
can source these components and build your
own display and control board. Sadly all prices/
quantities are on request only.
• Elettronica Digitale (EL.DI.) www.eldisrl.com/
en-gb (Italy)
• ScoreTronics scoretronics.com (Illinois, USA)
• Magsign magsign.jp/english/products (Japan)
SET UP YOUR FLIP-DOT DISPLAY
This guide will cover all the hardware and
software steps you’ll need to get your own flip-dot
display up and running.
1. WIRE IT UP
Connect your 24V power supply to the flip-dot
control board’s DC screw terminals.
Connect your RS485 converter from your
computer to the control board with a JR11 plug or
the screw terminals (Figure
A
).
2. SET THE DIP SWITCHES
Each controller has two DIP switches that need
to be set: a 3-pin baud rate and an 8-pin panel
address (Figure
B
).
Baud rate (3-pin DIP)
The communication transfer rate. I recommend
the fastest value of 57600, as I found anything less
FLIPPIN’ AWESOME
The greatest flip displays we’ve seen have got
to be from Breakfast, an art studio in Brooklyn
founded by three coders who wanted to
explore how to manifest data kinetically.
Breakfast began with large, interactive
electromechanical works commissioned by
brands (like their beautiful Thread Screen for
Forever 21), then moved into the fine art world
with haunting flip-disc works that render
climate change and deforestation data in real-
time while interacting with viewers via motion
tracking cameras.
Going flip-discs one better, they recently
innovated their own large, tile-like “Brixels”
that enable massive, stunning works like
Pulse, reminiscent of sculptor Ned Kahn’s
shimmering kinetic facades except driven not
by the wind, but by information.
—Keith Hammond
A
B
Breakfast, Owen McAteer
Adapted from Elettronica Digitale (eldisrl.com)
71
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