Ben & Felix: The Great Clock Off! -- Episode 345

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It's time for hacking in Ben and Felix's Great Clock-Off! How can we keep track of the time without using a personal computer or mobile phone? Well, Ben utilises discrete electronics and encoders with an LED matrix to keep stock of the time, where as Felix puts together a microcontroller with an LCD display and Real-Time Clock crystal as an alternative and more high tech' option - have you made a clock from scratch? What would you do differently? Let the team know on the element14 Community.

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Top Comments

koudelad over 6 years ago

For anyone interested in the LED matrix character set, here is a useful application brief https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/5988-7539EN
It is meant for LED 5x7 dot matrix displays, but obviously can be used for any other, if drawn by columns: https://www.broadcom.com/products/leds-and-displays/smart-alphanumeric-displays/serial-interface/hcms-2903 Nowdays Broadcom, formerly Avago technologies.
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makerkaren over 6 years ago in reply to gam3t3ch

It's not going to help much as most of the circuit is covered. But here's what I was able to get. I don't want to take it apart for fear of breaking it.
Pay no attention to the name on the board.
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makerkaren over 6 years ago in reply to phantom9999

Sure! Here ya go.
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gam3t3ch over 6 years ago

Can you post some close up photos of Felix's as well please makerkaren
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phantom9999 over 6 years ago in reply to makerkaren

Yes Yes this is good... Can you take a pic of the sexy wiring job Ben did on the back also?. This is cool stuff...
Thanks for the help... I might build a makeshift drawing of this.
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makerkaren over 6 years ago in reply to makerkaren

I realized you can't really read the numbers in the photo, so here.
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makerkaren over 6 years ago in reply to phantom9999

Here are some closeup pictures of the front of the clock. Hopefully that helps.
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phantom9999 over 6 years ago

I like this project.. Where can I find more information on the chips used and how Ben did some of the wirings.. I want to build one myself...
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mr_widget over 6 years ago

I am somewhat interested in seeing how Felix accomplished the rotary encoder and push switch. Put a lot of polling in the main loop? See, I did the exact same thing, except I used a mixed-signal micro-fpga (dialog GreenPak) to create a SPI up-down counter, but also set up a good debouncer for the switch. Since I was wanting to use this in a possibly hostile environment I also put an NTC temp sensor (which also stuffs the MSB of the SPI counter) and a PWM driver directly fed from the sensor so I can drive a variable speed cooling fan. I can now read all that data asynchronously without tying up the processor. Details available at http://www.bifrost-group.com
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DAB over 6 years ago

Nice episode.

I was happy to see Ben use old fashioned logic chips verses the MCU approach.
Yes we really did build clocks and things like this a few decades ago.

Now if you want a challenge, show how to synchronize two clocks separated by distance.

DAB
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