[Jon Stanley] has a nice write up on a POV propellor clock powered by a PIC microcontroller. He improved on the original design by [Bob Blick]. Jon tried a few different methods of powering the spinning circuit, some of which could be handy for other projects. As a double plus good bonus, schematics and code are all linked on the site. This clock would look nice and sinister sitting on any mad scientist’s dresser.
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has built the bulbdial clock, an idea originated by Ironic Sans. It’s basically a high definition indoor sundial. The LEDs arranged in a circle shine a light on the peg in the middle casting a shadow, just like a sundial. There are 3 colors of rings, allowing for hour, minute, and second shadows. This isn’t the first time that Ironic Sans has seen ideas come to reality. There were the pre pixelated reality show clothes and the sneaky histogram hidden message system. While it is a cute idea, it isn’t really new. People have been patenting this idea for a while.
[punkky] has been documenting his adventures building digital clocks. They each use six 7-segment LED displays, but he’s been gradually changing how they are built. The first version used a CMOS BCD-to-7-sement latch on each display, which is tied to a PIC16F627a. For the next run, he added multiplexing, so he could drive all the segments using just thirteen pins. He’s posted a final schematic with code and details of how the clock timing actually works.
The DS1077 is a 5volt, 133MHz to 16kHz programmable clock source. The internal frequency divider is configured over a simple I2C interface, and the chip requires no external parts. Not bad for under $2. We used the Bus Pirate to test this chip before using it in a project. Grab the datasheet (PDF) and follow along. Continue reading “Parts: 133MHz-16.2kHz Programmable Oscillator (DS1077)”
[Aaron] sent us this sweet Super Nintendo Clock that he built. When he found himself with a broken SNES, a friend challenged him to out do his previous NES clock. This time, the display would be located in the cartridge, and removable. Setting the time is done on the SNES controller and seems to work pretty well as you can see in the video after the break.
[Ian Smith] sent us this POV display made from an old hard drive. It works by flashing some LEDs under the platter, which has a line cut in it. Since the platter spins at roughly 90 rotations per second, we perceive a solid image. He was inspired by [Alan Parekh]’s project, but did several things differently. Mounting the LEDs was much simpler in this project as he had a strip of RGB LEDs that came with adhesive tape on the back. He also used a small magnet and a hall effect sensor to measure full rotations instead of an IR beam sensor. Check the video after the break.
If you’ve never heard about electronic paper, crawl out from under that rock and read up on the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle. E-paper is a flexible display made of color-changing beads that mimic ink-on-paper for easy daylight reading. The revolutionary thing about e-paper is that after it’s set, it stays that way without additional power.
This sounds great in theory, but Esquire’s cover is the first time everybody can afford to hack an e-paper display. We took the cover into the Hack a Day lab to document, test, and hack. In the end, we recycled it into something useful that anyone can build. We’ve got all the details on how the display works and what it takes to use it in your own projects. Read about our e-paper clock hack below. Continue reading “How-to: Make An E-paper Clock From Esquire Magazine”
