[Ishan Karve] took on the challenge of building his own word clock. This is a timepiece that displays the current time in the same syntax you would use if someone asked you what time it was. You’ll find a lot of these projects around, with one of our favorites using etched copper clad as a bezel. But [Ishan] departed for the ordinary by building a clock that is rectangular rather than square. To do so he uses a 16×8 LED matrix that is made up of small modules.
He designed a board that holds a 4×4 LED matrix and includes pin headers on each edge. This way he can arrange these 16-pixel blocks into arrays to make a larger grid. For the clock he used eight boards. These are driven by two MAX7219 chips, with an ATmega168 as the main controller and a DS1307 to keep time. Each LED is isolated by a thick layer of acrylic which as one hole for each pixel. This prevents light from bleeding over into letters that should not be illuminated. Check out the result in the clip after the break.
I saw word clock and thought he was building a new word clock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_clock
Nice build!
I personally prefer the somewhat “fuzzier” version that says “It’s a quarter to nine” and increments every five minutes.
Maybe not so precise, but it looks more elegant that “four five minutes past eight” (at 0:44 – coincidentally – in the video).
When you can address the LEDs individually, you can actually merge words that don’t usually appear together, like “threelevenine” or “twone”, to save space and cram more words.
Here is my take on a 8×15 grid:
ITXISXTWENTYXA
QUARTERFIVETEN
PASTOXTWELVEXX
MIDNIGHTENOONE
TWOTHREEFOURXX
FIVESIXEIGHTXX
SEVENINELEVENX
O'CLOCKXXXAMPM
In French 9×15:
ILXESTXMINUITX
UNEUFCINQUATRE
SEPTROISIXDEUX
HUITMIDIXONZEX
HEURESXETMOINS
LEVINGT-CINQXX
QUARTDIXDEMIEX
DUDEMATINSOIRX
L'APRES-MIDIXX
Yes, French is a little more verbose…
Thanks for the grid, but I’m not seeing half past. Is it in there somewhere and I’m not seeing it?
Just putting the finishing touches on my Word clock build. I used 9×11:
ITISOTWENTY
QUARTERHALF
FIVETENBEER
PASTOMEIGHT
TENINETHREE
FOURFIVESIX
MIDNIGHTWOJ
ELEVENOONEZ
SEVENOCLOCK
Still separates NOON and MIDNIGHT, also includes BEER OCLOCK :)
And yes as Kahn mentioned, in your example you missed HALF past.
Oops… wrong file. Nice catch!
Now, where did I put it…
IT’S ONE MINUTES PAST EIGHT.
Needs a way to turn off the S on the end of minutes.
People don’t say IT’S THREE THREE MINUTES PAST EIGHT. They say It’s thirty-three minutes past eight.
Nobody says IT’S ONE THREE MINUTES PAST EIGHT they say IT’S THIRTEEN MINUTES PAST EIGHT.
Most people say ‘Eight Thirty Three’.
@Galane .. I you take a look at the code.. I have already incorporated what u have suggested.. Thanks