7 segment display clock

Hello!

This is my first blog post. I post a lot to twitter but thought it would be good to keep track of everything for my element14 presents videos here.

For my next video I'm making a 7 segment RGB LED clock. I've 3d printed the bases on my robox printer in different colours: they look amazing!

I was going to 3d print the lids but I printed one to test it out with a light and it didn't diffuse as well as I wanted. Plus my brain was going crazy with the noise of the 3d printer! It took 90 minutes to print each segment.

So I've laser cut some translucent acrylic for the lids instead. I had to adapt the display and print a small cage to hold the lid in place. It works well!

Next up: solder the remaining numbers and choose a microcontroller.

This one is connected to a micro:bit and I found a real time clock board for it that would work... but I could use any microcontroller really. Besides a clock I haven't decided what else to use it for - an international clock, a calendar notifier? The LED strip is RGB and individually controllable.