Word Clock: Tell The Time With Words

wordclock

[drj113]  posts his cool word clock. After seeing a similar clock on an industrial design website, he set out to make his own version. He made custom pcbs with the toner-etch method. The front is a solid piece of copper clad board and the light shines through the etched areas. It’s powered by a PIC microcontroller and uses approximately 120 ultra bright LEDs. [drj113] has all of the circuit board diagrams, silkscreens, etch negatives, and code on the intructable so you can build your own.

24 thoughts on “Word Clock: Tell The Time With Words

  1. I was just thinking of two sweet features that would be so cool. One making a makeshift round clock with hands on the face of this using the letters a number places and strings of letters as the “hands” of the clock. Also make it so it just says random phrases for each individual time of the day. Eventually (and with some fun) you will know which phrase means which time.

  2. It looks like a regular board, but they’re usually translucent enough with bright lights behind them. I often shine lights through circuit boards to see the traces on both sides at once. It works surprisingly well.

    This project could be made much simpler by using a double sided board, and mounting SMD LEDs facing into the board. Depending how big it is, you could get away with PWMing them instead of using drive transistors.

  3. @kabadisha:

    that “megan” looks intentional. i wonder who would need a clock, that can say “five minutes past megan” – unless of course your girlfriend is megan.

    there is of course also an eve, but also doug, alf, hal, and an ian (down)

    – or is it:
    “megan woz four, i ve eve do twelve”

    whatever that means.

  4. The Megan was intentional – She is the person who I made the clock for

    Doug – Thats me. No sex change (Looks down…. Yep)

    Woz – That was also intentional – Apple designer. eve, alf, hal, and Ian are all artifacts that I didnt realise were there.

    The megan will sometimes light up to make her feel special. The doug only lights up during the power on self test.

    The PCB material – Standard fiberglass. Single sided boards – thats all I can fabricate at home.

    I had a lot of trouble getting even illumination, hence the 30mm standoff distane between the LEDs and the stencil. The Blue LEDS that I used are insanely bright, but also only have about a 26 degree viewing angle.

    I am very happy that people like it. :-)

  5. Oh that’s so cool!

    It would have been cool without the extra words and names, but the person’s name who it’s built for lighting up occasionally, and the maker’s when it boots?

    -Those just seal the deal. -IT’S AWESOME!

  6. It would be fairly easy to cut the design from vinyl using a craftrobo or similar and then stick it over an acrylic sheet, the back of the sheet could have a diffuser layer stuck on it. Side mounting the LEDs would make the project thinner and would reduce spotting that you normally get with LEDs.

    All in all I am very impressed with this project.

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.