What is it: A home-brew clone of the award winning Qclocktwo by Biegert & Funk.
Why is it cool: If someone, who has never seen a clock, built a clock based on a description of a clock might come up with something like this.
Background: The girlfriend scoped this clock out on a design blog back in August. I love it, and, as usual, state "I can built that."
She rolls her eyes. . .
The Build
I have an Arduino Mega controlling my whole rig. LEDs are in a 14 x 14 common cathode/common anode matrix which allows me to control the entire thing as a 196 LED display. It does scrolling text and the like.
Hour and minute changes are handled by capacitive sensors mounted under the glass. All you do is touch the right area and it acts as a virtual button.
Guts are made from a ton of wire, duct and electrical tape, cardboard and poster board.
And hot glue. Lots of hot glue.
The pretty parts are glass and hand brushed aluminum.
The face is mounted behind the glass and is made of an inkjet printed polyester. It's the same stuff the use to do backlit advertisements that you see in airports.
The Results
Photos are here.
Video is coming soon.
Lessons Learned and Future Improvements
- I am virulently allergic to epoxy. If I touch the stuff, I end up with lymph filled blisters up my arms. Fun!
- Not 100% satisfied with my glass mounting system. It's secure, but there is a ton of epoxy crud which is evident upon close inspection. If I built another, the glass and face would be held together using aluminum channel.
- I have a killer text display now. It'd be cool to add wireless to it to make a ticker reader. RSS, Twitter, etc.
Thanks
To the Arduino community. You guys are super helpful and way smarter than me.
