Weather Clock

January 11, 2010 by Mike Szczys 46 Comments

[Sean_Carney] build this clock that tells the weather instead of the time. The two hands display the current conditions and the temperature. Forty below zero seems amazingly cold if you’re on the Fahrenheit scale but [Sean’s] from Winnipeg so he’s operating on the Celsius side of things.

Two servos move the hands to match the data scraped off of the Internet. An Arduino does the scraping with the help of an Ethernet shield. This reminds us of the Harry Potter clock that tells a persons location.

[via Flickr]

Steampunk Nixie Clock

January 11, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

This single-digit Nixie clock is a thing of beauty. You might hate Steampunk or you might love it, but you have to respect projects where the design gets equal (or more) consideration compared to the function. The electronics used in the project build upon an existing single Nixie design. Instead of hiding the guts inside the clock the PCB has been laid out to augment the design. We think [Blue Metal] hit it out of the park with this one!

194 Transistor Clock Will Blow Your Mind

January 11, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 59 Comments

It’s nice to have tip put on our desks that we think everyone, yes everyone can enjoy. The Transistor Clock is just as its name implies, A clock that doesn’t rely on ICs. 194 Transistors, 400 resistors, 566 diodes, and 87 capacitors are all that makes this clock tick – no programing, and most importantly no Arduino. The clock is offered as a kit, but there is a complete parts list and manual (including debugging help) so anyone can build (and fix) their own. The Transistor Clock might even beat out the VFD Clock and the Word Clock on the ‘pure awesome’ scale, tell us your favorite in the comments.

[Thanks Hoopstar]

VFD Clock (ends The World)

December 26, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 15 Comments

We honestly thought [Jason’s] VFD clock was some form of new terrorist attack when we came across the RSS. Thank goodness our relations with Russia aren’t as MAD as they used to be.

The main components are an IV-18 VFD with a MAX6921 driver, which to an untrained ear do sound surprisingly threatening. However an Arduino settles our hearts down and assures us this only has as much potential as blinking a VFD. While the main code, schematics, and CAD aren’t available (open source coming to a theater near you soon) at the moment – you can check out [Jason’s] inspiration, the Ice Tube Clock, which runs many of the same components.

Enjoy a video of it in action after the break. We love the ‘countdown’ feature the most.

[via Make] Continue reading “VFD Clock (ends The World)” →

Clocks That Only A Geek Could Love

December 18, 2009 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

Alpha-Geek Clock

Oh this one’s good! This clock has a built-in WWVB receiver to make sure the time is always accurate. But with just one LED as the display we wish you good luck when reading it! A whole bunch of info (time, day, year, etc) is blinked out in binary encoded decimal. [Thanks Tymm]

Standard Time

Manual labor. This clock is an art installation in Rotterdam. In the video you can see that workers changed the segments of a four-digit display every minute over a twenty-four hour period. Since they filmed it we’d expect the ability to turn this into a video clock like the one we saw last week. [Thanks David]

International Clock

Low-tech but highly creative. The instructional video uses basic geometry and the workings from a cheap clock to craft an international clock. There are twelve labels corresponding to different time zones. Put the zone you want up and read the clock as normal. [via Red Ferrett Journal]

Princess and the Pea

There are few who will agree to have an air tank as part of an alarm clock. The Princess and the Pea concept uses compressed air to inflate an exercise ball in between the mattress and the box spring. Watch this video to see how it will roll you out of bed if the hissing air sound didn’t wake you first. At least it’s more gentle than the pneumatic alarm clock from last June. [via Neatorama]

Word Clock Redux

December 11, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 21 Comments

[drj113] wrote back to let us know his latest version of the infamous Word Clock, now in Arduino flavor. You may remember when we originally showed you the Word Clock back in September, while much hasn’t changed, he’s added and modified a few things to make it more user-friendly. Most notably is the use of Arduino instead of PIC, while some commentators will complain this as a waste of an Arduino, it is extending the project towards those who are less technically inclined. Other changes include a new case, dedicated time changing buttons, and blue LEDs (and who doesn’t love blue).

We would also like to give [Alex], one of our commentators, a shout out with is QlockTwo. Same Word Clock concept, but used acrylic, paper sheet, and stickers to produce a much smoother look.

Update: It would appear we’ve made a slight mistake, the original creator of the QlockTwo is actually [Ruud Burger], not [Alex]. Thanks [Ruud] for clearing that up.

Bulbdial Clock Kit Released

December 10, 2009 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has just released a Bulbdial clock kit. This has come a long way since their first prototype, featuring three PCBs to carry the 72 charlieplexed LEDs. For accuracy they’ve included an optional header for a ChronoDot precision RTC.

With a great looking face and laser-cut acrylic case available, this may soon adorn our mantle. Time to write that letter to Santa…

Update: [Windell] of EvilMadScientist.com posted some video of the clock in action. We’ve embedded it after the break.

Continue reading “Bulbdial Clock Kit Released” →