Light up your bike for festival season or nighttime Critical Mass rides. Stand out from the crowd with a custom persistence-of-vision bike wheel display, and upload dozens of your own images to create the ride you’ve always dreamed of.

Persistence of vision is the effect that happens when your eyes briefly retain an image after it disappears. By flashing LEDs in carefully timed patterns as the bike wheel spins, those individual points of light appear to blend together into a complete floating image.

This guide shows you how to build a three-spoke, double-sided bike wheel display. There’s some tricky soldering required to get everything wired neatly and securely in place, so this is not a beginner build.

Sample CircuitPython code and images are included, and it’s easy to swap in your own artwork or adapt the layout for your particular wheel and LED setup.

Parts

This is my favorite wire for projects that will flex and move a lot. Get 4 different colors: I used black, red, green, and yellow.

You'll Also Need

• Clear self-fusing silicone tape
• Clear 1/2" heat shrink tubing
• Hot glue gun & sticks
• Heat gun
• Zip ties
• Soldering iron & accessories