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  • Author Author: hugohu
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Retrofited Alarm Clock with New Brains and stuff

hugohu
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Recycle & Retrofit

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I have this old Sony alarm clock. Took it apart a few months ago, powered solely by ICs.

 

It's not too powerful.

 

I'm adding a Pi 4 to it- to run the Google Assistant SDK, so it could be a google assistant enabled alarm clock.

 

Well, what's my progress?

 

Welp. I've been procrastinating a bit since I thought the due date was 1/14.

 

Turns out it was 12/14

 

Ouch.

 

Anyway. I have a first-gen AIY kit I got from microcenter for 3 dollars. I plopped it onto the Pi 4 4GB Tariq sent me(thank you!)

I set up the SDK, API, and stuff like that yesterday.
https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com/voice-v1/

 

I can't find the microphone! I'll find the speaker I took from this alarm clock, reinstall it, and connect.

 

When done, I'll install it into the chassis.

 

For the screen- I'll have to reverse engineer the LCD module.... ouch....

 

Multimeter should come in handy.

 

Yay. I opened up the chassis. Looks like I'll need significantly more effort to modify the case than i expected.

 

Ouch.

 

Ouch.

 

Ouch...

 

Yipee. The API didn't work. I have to redo it. WHIPEE.

 

Hey, I did finid that mic.

 

12/9/2020

 

Ralph, you were right! Just finished the major portion for this.

 

image

 

3A+(sorry Tariq but space was limited)

 

This also has one of those AIY hats.

 

The AIY hat is basically just an audio amp, mic breakout, and servo drivers.

 

Suits me.

 

The original speaker's wires are too old and I decided to swap them for new ones. Hi-quality 22AWG, here we come!

 

Soldered on some new wire, and it's as good as new.

 

The sound quality isn't the best, but it IS over a decade old.

image

 

Trust me- it really is the original speaker.

 

Look how much it fits to the original chassis. Had to tape it on since I couldn't find my glue gun.

 

image

 

And lastly a poorly shot image

 

That plastic, is to prevent the terminal block leads from touching the HDMI port which causes a short circuit which isn't fatal but make a buzzing noise.

 

That's it.

 

(Or is it)

 

I have to add a video for proof!

 

Here's a short video, showing myself asking the current time and temperature.

 

 

Time to figure out the timing part. Ouch....

 

Now that hurts. Time to dig up some dev modules.

 

12/11

 

I did make the clock!

 

With an arduino Uno, but I realized it wouldn't fit. In my attempt to use a digispark I managed to kill the digispark and also the screen and RTC.

 

*Trying but failing not to cry*

 

*sniffs*

 

Sacrficed, I suppose.

 

Time to find something else.

 

A bit of "how to"

 

First, you have to follow the instructions in the link I posted above. However, don't connect the speaker nor put it in a case.

 

Then, see how to fit this into your case. I had to snap some plastic support structures to do so.

 

Then, I had to figure out the power issue. I basically took the power cable and then fit it through the hole that the power cable used to be.

 

Since I already enclosed the board, I use SSH to connect to it, and run the scripts.

 

I have no idea if I can add a screen- I fried the smallest dev board I had, the small ones that I have now are incompatible with libraries.

 

I still have a cool SHARP monochrome 2.7" screen, but that requires a large memory size and I don't have small boards with more powerful chips that support libraries.

 

Installed a LCD, 12/17

thanks for the extension!