Message Fan

I was buying some auxiliary usb fans for my printers so I don't have to lug bigger fans on the road. I like a lot of cooling. I came across some with customizable persistence of vision. [amzn.com] If I could squeeze out some time to do silly projects I would totally hack these guys so I could post messages from host software to the fan. You know like time remaining, temps, etc. For now I will have to settle for sweet custom messages.

Heh, that sounds pretty cool!

Nice find !
Did you buy any ?
Can I ask which way the message is orientated with regards to which way they are blowing ?
I.E. if you hold them displaying the message towards you, are they blowing towards you ?

I so want to be able to mount one on the front of my reprap !

blowing onto the heatbed, (away from me) but be readable to me.

I ordered some but from the picture I would say that it is blowing at you. However, I think we can print new blades. :-)

What an idea !!

It takes so long to get used to the idea of a 3D printer doesn't it !

I ordered one today, I also had a read around the net, I wonder if I'll get time to hack one too.
I have some mbeds available (LPC1768), I could USBHost my printer and write to the fan on the fly.

too many interesting projects, too little time!

The Arduino Due has USB host capabilities, correct? Could we wire this directly to RAMPS-FD and use it instead of an LCD?

There is a variant of that fan out there that has a temperature sensor readout. No reason that couldn't be attached to a heat bed. Something like this: [www.ebay.com]