Birthday Gift Is A Constant Reminder Of Impending AARP Membership

March 22, 2011 by Mike Nathan 16 Comments

Sometimes milestone birthdays can be a bit depressing. 30 is rough, and 40 tougher – but 50…that’s a big one!

[Ryan’s] uncle is going to be turning 50 shortly, and in the interest of good-natured fun, he has constructed a handy birthday countdown timer for his uncle, lest he forget (or tries to avoid) the big day.

The device displays the amount of time left before his uncle’s birthday, playing an audio clip of “Don’t fear the Reaper” when the clock strikes 00:00. This is accomplished by using the MSP430’s internal clock to keep time, while also interfacing with a Nokia 3310 LCD panel to display the countdown timer. The music is provided by the circuit board from a greeting card he gutted for the project, which was wired to the LaunchPad in order to be triggered at the right moment. Everything was crammed inside an Altoids tin, as you can see in the picture above.

Though not overly complicated, it’s a fun little project, and we’re hoping his uncle gets a big kick out of it. Once his birthday has come and gone, [Ryan] plans on converting the piece into a permanent desktop clock for his uncle.

Sleek Numitron Clock Tells The Time And Temperature

March 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 6 Comments

Instructables user [janw] is a big fan of nixie clocks, but he had never built one before. He decided he would rather start small and build a clock using numitron tubes first, before moving to nixies. He preferred the simpler tubes due to their much lower voltage requirements and the fact that he would not have to use any specialized power supply for his project.

His clock serves double-duty, functioning as a thermometer as well. Timekeeping is regulated with a DS12307, and temperature is monitored using a DS18B20 single wire sensor – both of which are pretty common in these sorts of projects. Both are wired to an Atmega48 MCU which serves as the brain of the clock.

The numitrons were mounted in a handsome 5-layer milled acrylate stand with a pair of buttons mounted on the bottom which allow him to set the time. It really is a spectacular looking timepiece, and a great first effort on [janw’s] part.

Be sure to stick around to see a video of the clock in action.

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LEGO Pendulum Clock

March 4, 2011 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

Put a case around it and it would be a grandfather clock but for now it’s a pendulum clock made from LEGO pieces. The video after the break shows a great overview of the build. You can see the workings at several different angles, as well as a clip that has been sped up to show the movement of the weights over time. One weight, made from dead AA batteries, drives the clock and the other weight switches the winding motor. That motor acts to automatically wind the clock when the drive weight reaches the end of its rope.

This is a nice departure from the majority of clock projects we see as it utilizes mechanical concepts instead of electronic. Most of [Pmroskelly’s] build details are shared as comments on the Picasa album found at the link above. There are also some other videos such as the one showing how the escapement works.

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Google Two-factor Authentication In A Wristwatch

February 27, 2011 by Mike Nathan 13 Comments

The Chronos watch from Texas Instruments is a handy little piece of hardware if placed in the right hands. If you are not familiar with the platform, it is marketed as a “wearable wireless development system that comes in a sports watch”. In plain English, it’s a wearable wireless MCU mated with a 96 segment LCD, that boasts an integrated pressure sensor and 3-axis accelerometer. It is capable of running custom firmware, which allows it to do just about anything you would like.

[Huan Trong] wanted to take advantage of Google’s new two-factor authentication, and decided his Chronos would make a great fob, since he would likely be wearing the watch most of the time anyhow. He put together some custom firmware that allows the watch to function as an authentication fob, providing the user with a valid Google passcode on command.

He does warn that the software is alpha code at best, stating that it doesn’t even allow the watch to keep time at the moment. We are definitely looking forward to seeing more code in the near future, keep up the great work!

Be sure to stick around to see a video of his watch in action.

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A VFD Clock That Tells The Time, Then Tells You To **** Off

February 25, 2011 by Mike Nathan 12 Comments

Clocks are relatively simple devices – they tell time, and most often sport a handful of other utilitarian features like alarms and radios. Rarely though, do you see a clock that will wake you up in the morning and also curse at you shortly thereafter. [Matt Evans] clearly thought that clocks need to pack a little more attitude, so he built his girlfriend a clock that not only tells time, but spouts off nasty phrases as well. What a lucky gal!

The clock was constructed using IV-17 VFD tubes, each bearing 16 light-able segments. It seemed wasteful to simply use the tubes to tell time, so [Matt] got busy adding other features to the clock. It has an alarm, a calendar that is always stuck on his girlfriend’s birthday, and an ambient light sensor to dim the tubes at night. It also sports a variable rudeness setting, allowing for mild insults when family members are present, and extremely foul language for when your frat brothers swing by.

He has plenty of pictures on his site, but we’re betting people will want to see schematics and some source code. After all, Mother’s Day is but a few months away!

The Interstellar Clock

February 22, 2011 by Chris Nelson 21 Comments

[Alexander Avtanski] has put together a nice clock to meet all your interstellar travel needs. Besides being another PIC based timer, this is a neat little project because it incorporates pretty much every feature you could think of when building a clock for our solar sytem. For example, it has 16 independent timers and alarms, it can simultaneously give the time for multiple planets, as well as keep track of other stellar events like the eye of Jupiter or the phases of the moon. To get this project off the ground [Alex] reverse engineered an old dial up modem to serve as an enclosure and power supply and then added in a rechargeable battery so that his his interstellar clock wasn’t tied to a wall.

[via make]

Over-engineered Clock Finds Purpose As RSS Reader

February 21, 2011 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[Bob Alexander] admits that he over-engineered his clock, giving it eight control buttons, eight twelve-segment alpha-numeric display digits, a GPS module as a time source, and a beefy microcontroller to boot. But he’s found a way to get more for his money out of the device by adding RSS and weather features to it.

Since he’s using the PIC 18F4550 it’s a snap to add USB connectivity. From there he wrote a fantastic PC-side application for communicating with the display. Now he has the option of displaying time, RSS feeds, or weather by scrolling through the options with one of the buttons. Perhaps the best feature is the option to launch a browser on the PC and view the current story just by pressing a button on the display. Check out the two demos after the break; one shows the clock features and the other demonstrates the C# software.

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