As many of you may remember, I built a yellow LED clock back in April. It was only intended to be a prototype and was expecting to build a newer version as soon as I found what improvements could be made. As it happens, I did a pretty good job It keeps time pretty well (about 1 second per month loss), so version 2 didn't get a second thought until I needed something exclusive to give to my girlfriend for her birthday. Work began yesterday evening on designing a new PCB for a 4 digit version, with slightly updated electronics (i.e. less components). Today I created the PCB: In the end I made two PCB's as I decided I could do with another clock for while I'm at uni. Construction began... Success with my green LED version! It's a little bit bright! It projects a bright green beam onto the wall the other side of my room that's visible even with all the lights on in my room! I then constructed the blue LED version for my girlfriend, using these lovely diffused blue LEDs. The shutter was set to 1/120 sec for this photo, to give an idea of how bright these things are. And both clocks together: All in all, a pretty productive day. I need to re-write the code more efficiently tommorow though, and also include the brightness control so that the LED's aren't quite so bright in a dark room... Think I'll be wearing sunglasses to sleep tonight...
I see them fine. Impressive work Stevey, although it probably would've been wise to add brightness control first before soldering all those LEDs together. I couldn't imagine sleeping in the same room as that thing.
How much would you be willing to sell one of the blue ones for fully assembled and shipped (or would you be willing to at all?)? I really like the looks of it and wrapped in some some acrylic it would be quite nice.
The brightness control is now adjustable in software, it wasn't ever going to require any adjustments to the electronics, but at the moment I have no LDRs to make the adjustment automatic. The circuit board was already drilled etc, just need to solder the two legs of the LDR in as soon as I get my hands on a couple. Not sure how much I'd sell them for, as I've not had to ever buy any of the parts since I already have plenty of stuff in stock, so I'll have to sit and work out the cost of the clock.
LDRs are boring, trying to get one that coupes with destractions is a bit fiddly (i found i kept been woken up in the night with a big flash of light!) get a pair of ultra-sound sensors, and have a hand controlled brightness. Move your hand near to turn brightness up, pull it away to dim (in Z) that way when you move ur hand way in X,Y it saves the setting. This is just damn cool :>)
Sweet! That blue one would have to be pretty expensive! Do you want to post the chematics and asm/hex file for that one? (assuming you used a PIC...)
Yeah, I'll post the hex file as soon as the code is finalised. I'm still modifying the code at the moment.
very slick clock there! Its a toss up between weither i build one of these or TB's 4" high 7 seg job!
Thanks, I prefer the look of the individual LEDs, rather than the 7 seg displays. It would be cool if you could buy light bars to build your own 7 seg display but without the plastic surround.
I too would also like ot know the overall price/ cost of this clock if you were to ever build and sell them, even if it were just a one ( or two ) off situation. I'd like one of these in my bedroom.. i allready have an LED binary clock next to my pc, but it takes to much effort thinking wise to tell the time when half asleep !
if the LEd's are grounded you can just splice in a pot in series with the LED's and gnd, and then adjust it to your liking. since your clock is on 24 hr. maybe you could connect the LED's in a way so 20:00 to 6:00 is dimmer than 6:01 to 19:59, night mode, you dig?
There's no need to use any nasty things like pots, the brightness is variable in software. Just alter the duty cycle of the digits for full brightness control. The idea for having it dim for just the night time is a good one, I didn't think of that!
that looks like Rapid "Eco photoresist copper clad board" the same stuff i allways use, wonderful stuff! i just want to see some schematics / .hex file! and for the "Single Button Fan/Lights Controller" because thats just classy too!
I think it is the same PCB as that from Rapid, but I usually order my PCBs straight from Mega (though I noticed the price has gone up recently!). I think the cost for one of these clocks could be around £30-£35 for the 4 digit version, and maybe £35-£40 for a 6 digit one, although it all depends what LEDs are used etc. There may be cheaper PICs than the ones I used for this, so will have to look into how cheap I could make one of these clocks for. I don't have access to my computer for a week or so now, so will be unable to create a schematic for it just yet.
