Upcycled Clock - Soldering and more 3D printing

This weekend was all about mounting most of the electronic components to the back of the clock, and soldering the pieces of the LED strip together which will be used for diffusion for the panels as shown in the picture below, which were 3D printed in a previous blog post at - 3D Printing LED diffusers for the panels

In addition, I have also 3D printed holders for the electronic components using black PLA , instead of hot gluing the electronics directly to  back, which mean I can reuse/replace the components in the future if I need to..

Here is a picture of all the electronic components mounted to the back of the clock,I know it is kind of messy! , but here is the list of connection to the Intel Edison via the Grove connector shield

• A0 – Potentiometer which is used to control features on the clock and display things like weather condition, Temperature extra.
• D2 – Top button
• D3 -  Bottom button
• D5 – Grove buzzer sensor for sound notification
• D11 - LED strip (APA102) Data
• D13 – LED strip Clock
• A1 – Grove Air quality sensor v1.3
• A2 – Grove temperature sensor
• A3 – Grove Light sensor
• I2C connector on grove shield (A4, A5) - connected to the Grove RGB LCD display
• In addition, I am also using Adafruit’s Stereo 3.7W Class D Audio Amplifier - MAX98306 with a 4 ohms 3 watt speaker connected to the USB sound card, which you see on the left of the picture above. But I should have ideally gone with Adafruit Mono 2.5W Class D Audio Amplifier - PAM8302, since I am using only one speaker,which means I will have to order one later.
• To power the Intel Edison I am using the power adapter that came in as part of the kit that is Triad Magnetic  WSX120-2000WSX120-2000 AC/DC Power Supply 1 Output 24 W 12 V,2 A
• And power the LED strip I am currently using another power adapter 5V and 2.5 A.

Here are a few pictures of build process

It was finally time! to pull out the Dremel and try and cut through panels. This was the part of the build that had me all worked up, basically I knew that I had to cut through a materials that was old, and it was not plastic, but is very close and extremely brittle. I started with the circular cutting bit on the Dremel and soon realized it was a bad idea. And then had to muster some courage to use the drill bit.

Once I had the drilling holes out of the way, the next part of the build was a test of my patience , where I had to cut 5 pieces of the LED strip and then tin the ends and chain them together as shown in the picture below. In addition, since I am using 2 buttons and  a pot, I had to solder connections onto a Adafruit’s perma-proto PCB, and I also need a common ground for the LED strip.

For sound, I used a Adafruit’s Stereo 3.7W Class D Audio Amplifier which was connected to the USB sound card. And for the speaker I am using a 4 ohms 3 watt speaker. I designed and 3D printed holders for both the amplifier and speaker as shown in the pictures below.In addition, I designed a base holder for the Intel Edison Arduino board, so that it would be easy to add to the clock.

For the grove sensors (Temperature, Light , Air Quality  and buzzer), I designed and 3D printed holder.

Finally, I mounted the clock on the wall and ran a test for the LED strip, here I wanted to check how the 20 LEDs strip on the back rim of the clock would glow onto the roof, which will act as a quick visual indicator in the morning before I head out to work..