When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When life gives you freezing cold temperatures and a yard full of snow, you make binary clocks out of ice. At least that’s what [Dennis] does, anyway.
[Dennis’] clock is made from several cylindrical blocks of ice stacked on top of one another. There are six columns of ice blocks. The blocks were made by pouring water into empty margarine containers and freezing them. Once they were frozen, [Dennis] bore a 5/16″ hole into the bottom of each block to house an LED. Wires ran from the LEDs back into the drainage port of a cooler.
The cooler housed the main electronics. The LED controller board is of [Dennis’] own design. It contains six TLC59282 chips allowing for control of up to 96 LEDs. Each chip has its output lines running to two RJ45 connectors. [Dennis] couldn’t just use one because one of the eight wires in the connector was used as a common power line. The main CPU is an Arduino. It’s hooked up to a DS3234 Real Time Clock in order to keep accurate time. The oscillator monitors temperature in order to keep accurate time even in the dead of winter.
Who needs filiment-wire, or resin? In this weather, I bet water could be 3D-Printed
Keep a tank of water just above feezing and use a mister, it just might work.
Why do people love BCD clocks so much? It feels like cheating.
Cool…
(Well, someone had to…)
When life gives me lemons, I don’t make lemonade!
Also, is is OK to say “The main CPU is an Arduino”?
Why not try making a few 7 segment ice displays and make it do a clock that most people can understand?
Electricity and water? Does this guy have a death wish?
My suggestion, different colors for the H, M. S columns…
Oh and have it tell the temperature too!
heh, you just gave me a whole new idea for a binary-ish clock, maybe trinary.
Someone still eats margarine?! Yum… hydrogenated fats!