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  • Author Author: shabaz
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CodeBug Project: Clock!

shabaz

With its 5x5 LED matrix, a binary coded decimal (BCD) clock is easy to create.

 

BCD is pretty easy - each column represents a digit, with the individual LEDs equating to 1, 2, 4 and 8.

If the first two LEDs in a column are lit then that means the digit is 3 (the sum of 1+2).

 

Here is a BCD example from wikipedia that represents the time 10:37 in BCD:

image

With the codebug I decided to build a 12-hour clock and to use the center LED to indicate the seconds:

image

 

When powered up, the default time is 1:00. To tweak the accuracy you may need to adjust the delay in the code.

To try it out or to modify and adapt to your taste,  click here for the BCD Clock.

Here is an example photo - excuse the quality!

image

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  • That's nice - I like binary/BCD clocks.

     

    Have you thought of doing a stopwatch? Tens of seconds, seconds, tenths, and hundreths? One button to start the other to stop?

     

    Would be fun to play with.

     

    Could also be adapted to time signals on the inputs. Light beams and photodetectors would give the means to time a pendulum or work out the speed of a Scalextric car.

  • in reply to jc2048

    Hi Jon,

     

    Interesting ideas! A stopwatch is a great idea. Speed measurement would be neat too.

    I need a few-minute timer for a coffee stove type thing, so connecting up a little buzzer to it would be cool.

    Also a simple button-press (or input-triggered) up/down counter could have uses.

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