Building a clock of some sorts seems to be a time honored tradition for hackers and LED clocks seem one of the most popular. You can build anything from a seven-segment display to a binary clock or something even more fancy. [Clueless] found a circle of LED rings online and with made an LED version of an analog clock.
The rings aren’t wired together, and it seems like these are designed to be separated, but it’s pretty easy to wire them together in order to have a circle of individually accessible RGB LEDs. Each hand of the clock is a different color and is antialiased to give a smoother look, since the LEDs don’t line up. [Clueless] wanted the second hand to rotate smoothly, so it is updated using the milliseconds as an offset to the second. An ESP8266 runs the code and controls the LEDs getting the time from an NTP server. Occasionally, [Clueless] has the clock display a quick effect, such as a Pac-man or a radar scan animation.
All the files are up on the Github page, including the Blender models for the case, available to build your own and a simple search for “241 LED ring” turns up the LED hardware used. There are plenty of clock projects on the site, like this multicolor LED ring clock and we’re sure that you can find something interesting.
Interesting. I did not know about these LED disks; I need to sniff around on AliExpress more often. Here’s a randomly chosen example like the disk used by [Clueless] – 241 RGB WS812B 5VDC LEDs on a white 172mm (6.77″) diameter PCB, US $18.43 each with “free” 3-4 week shipping to the USA (where I happen to live):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32790922417.html
Another, for redundancy – US $18.43:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000117810401.html
Using a single led circle, I have done the same to create a night clock for my toddler. Rerefences at https://github.com/bneijt/night-light
very nice – I am in for one – starting the 3D print while I wait for the parts to arrive…
I appreciate the embedded video this time…
In case anyone is interested, I have added a couple of animations to the original version. For animated images of the full set of effects, see: https://www.kaper.com/electronics/ledcircleclock-revisited/