Ran for the first time!

[BlenderRender3D]

Hello @AncientJames,

I'm happy to report that I just ran my Rotovox build for the first time. I ran it to about 170 rpm, this is the rpm reported by the vortex program. At this rate it starts shaking. So I know I need to put in counter weights. At what rpm should I get a recognizable image? Is my rotation direction correct? Mine is currently running counter clockwise.

WhatsApp.Video.2025-10-19.at.18.57.32.mp4

Does this look OK for 170 rpm?

Edit:

WhatsApp.Video.2025-10-19.at.19.55.32.mp4

The zander app is already recognizable. Hard to film of course.

[AncientJames]

Congratulations on getting to this point!
The rotovox layout does require a higher rotation rate than vortex. I found that around 450 rpm was when the effect started to become convincing.
Please make sure you're wearing protection if you're running it up to that sort of speed. I used a face shield when fiddling with the bare device.

[BlenderRender3D]

Thank you so much! I started building the Rotovox because the taller display sounded interesting and also I had problems with compiling the Vortex software configuration.

Now that I have Rotovox running I think I want to give Vortex another try. Double the voxel updates per rotation now sounds really good. With counter weights I can probably up the speed a bit, but I'm not feeling comfortable with increasing the speed almost 3 times.

[BlenderRender3D]

I got the Vortex configuration compiled and running. Looks good to me:

test-vortex.mp4

Now I can design a new mount for the panels.

[BlenderRender3D]

20251116_161448.mp4

20251116_161533.mp4

Converted to Vortex now. Above 175 rpm the vibrations are really bad. Need to start experimenting with counter weights.

How do I calculate the PANEL_X_ECCENTRICITY?

[AncientJames]

The eccentricity is how far the panel is offset from the axis, in units of LED pitch. With my build, one panel is on the axis and the other offset by 25mm. With a 1.875mm LED spacing this gives values close to 0 and 13.3,

There are some python scripts in the multivox source that draw various calibration grids to the voxel buffer. If you build with DEVELOPMENT_CALIBRATE defined, you can use [ ] { and } to nudge the eccentricities in and out until everything lines up.

[BlenderRender3D]

Thanks again @AncientJames, DEVELOPMENT_CALIBRATE worked great. I think I found the right values for my display. Also used the python scripts. Ran it on very low RPM. I probably recalibrate when I can reach higher rpm's.

I'm thinking about bending a polycarbonate plate into a cylinder shape for the cover. Buying a tube with a diameter of around 44 cm is just too expensive, for what I found so far.