I have come to the realization that I am far too lazy to take the time to swap out posters in my poster frames. Not that I don't love my LOTR posters, but it would be nice to have The Matrix in every now and then (or, gasp, Pocahontas for when the kids are having company) without having to make the effort of swapping out posters.
SO, I spent FAR more effort (and money) building a poster frame that will change posters for me at the flip of a switch. And it is cool beyond belief:
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At first glance, this looks like a pretty standard DIY backlit poster frame with room for a couple mylars as well. But wait! Notice the strange block on the left side of the frame. That my friends is where the magic happens.
Flipping that simple switch down causes the posters in my frame to change for me! Here's a behind the scenes look:
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As you can see (or maybe not), there is an 8 AA battery holder (attached with some hi-tech masking tape
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) that supplies 12v to the DPDT (on-off-on) switch. The switch then allows the current to flow to the electric motor, whose hind end is so prevalent above. Please ignore the extra hole. That is what happens when you measure from the bottom instead of the top and are too lazy to go buy a new piece of wood.
In the next image you will see inside the frame at the top roller, and the ball-chain driven clutch gear. You can get these gears from Levelor, or sewinganddraperysupplies.com. They are called Roll-Ease or some such:
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The top roll starts empty and the bottom one starts full. Next image is of the gear that is attached to the motor. It turns the top roll, rolling (or unrolling, depending on which way you flip the switch), which pulls posters from the bottom roll (or allows you to easily rewind the bottom roll when you fill up the top):
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And finally, for completeness sake, here is the bottom ball-chain gear. I have removed the clutch from it so it can turn freely. The tension supplied by the top clutch keeps it from un-winding:
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What's that, you say? "How can we believe you that it actually changes posters for you?" Well, I have proof! Simply click for a video
I had to crop the edges of the video, so you wouldn't see my ugly mug. You might not have had your coffee yet.
On this frame I currently have 8 posters. The second one will have 30, and if that continues to work, I'll come back and add more to this frame. I can have up to a two inch radius roll, which I estimate to be about 36 posters.
My humble apologies to the poster purists who will no doubt have realized that I had to tape the posters together end-to-end to make this work. With electrical tape. You may commence to flogging me now.
Okay, enough flogging. I am hoping to change the switch to a momentary one, and add some sort of optical switch inside the frame, so that it stops automatically at the next poster. Shouldn't be TOO hard to accomplish. I would LOVE for the final addition to be a microprocessor that automatically changes posters for me so every morning when I come in I get a new one without me having to expend ANY energy at all
![]()
SO, I spent FAR more effort (and money) building a poster frame that will change posters for me at the flip of a switch. And it is cool beyond belief:
At first glance, this looks like a pretty standard DIY backlit poster frame with room for a couple mylars as well. But wait! Notice the strange block on the left side of the frame. That my friends is where the magic happens.
Flipping that simple switch down causes the posters in my frame to change for me! Here's a behind the scenes look:
As you can see (or maybe not), there is an 8 AA battery holder (attached with some hi-tech masking tape
In the next image you will see inside the frame at the top roller, and the ball-chain driven clutch gear. You can get these gears from Levelor, or sewinganddraperysupplies.com. They are called Roll-Ease or some such:
The top roll starts empty and the bottom one starts full. Next image is of the gear that is attached to the motor. It turns the top roll, rolling (or unrolling, depending on which way you flip the switch), which pulls posters from the bottom roll (or allows you to easily rewind the bottom roll when you fill up the top):
And finally, for completeness sake, here is the bottom ball-chain gear. I have removed the clutch from it so it can turn freely. The tension supplied by the top clutch keeps it from un-winding:
What's that, you say? "How can we believe you that it actually changes posters for you?" Well, I have proof! Simply click for a video
I had to crop the edges of the video, so you wouldn't see my ugly mug. You might not have had your coffee yet.
On this frame I currently have 8 posters. The second one will have 30, and if that continues to work, I'll come back and add more to this frame. I can have up to a two inch radius roll, which I estimate to be about 36 posters.
My humble apologies to the poster purists who will no doubt have realized that I had to tape the posters together end-to-end to make this work. With electrical tape. You may commence to flogging me now.
Okay, enough flogging. I am hoping to change the switch to a momentary one, and add some sort of optical switch inside the frame, so that it stops automatically at the next poster. Shouldn't be TOO hard to accomplish. I would LOVE for the final addition to be a microprocessor that automatically changes posters for me so every morning when I come in I get a new one without me having to expend ANY energy at all
