The brain of the Word Clock is the Arduino Nano. This works perfectly fine, but takes a lot of time to build! However, in my first version, I made the grid out of thin wooden strips which I glued together. I also tried this, but this did not work out for me. In other Instructables, this grid was made using foam strips that are put together in a grid. To accomplish this, I used a laser cutter to cut out a grid of wooden board. So, when one led turns on, it should light up one letter. So, by connecting one wire, you can control all the leds in the strip!īehind every letter on the face of the Word Clock (please see later this step) hides one led of the RGB led strip. The RGB led strip is controlled by one input (still a bit of magic to me). By combining the three colors, (almost) every color can be created. My current version uses a RGB led strip: this is a led strip in which each 'light bulb' consists of a Red, Green and Blue led. Now that I made eight Word Clocks, which I try to improve each time, I think it is time to share my experience!Īn advantage of my experience is that the latest version of my Word Clock is actually quite simple: if you have all the components, you should be able to build it in one day. You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.A few years ago, I started making my first Word Clock, inspired by the nice Instructables available. This is distributed under the Apache License v2.0 unless some library or code isn't compatible ):Ĭopyright 2014 Daniel Esteban - under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License") I also used two overlapping 5x7 led matrices to create the 6x7 I used, so numbers of input are wrong, but I thing you could get the picture. Schematicįirst time using Fritzing or any other schematic editor, I know it's a mess and ugly, not sure how to resize the MAX7219 as it looks like the scale isn't right, but it's my first time! RTC clock (Macetech Chronodot) is a DS3132 but the connection is the same so I used the one it came with Fritxing. To light up group #2 and #3, variable 'a1' next to be 96 (= 64+32). In this code, to light up the led groups you need to follow the next table:įor example, to light up the group #1, variable 'a1' needs to have a value of 128. To light up words, we need to put ON the next groups: Minute-led are in groups 38-41, all extra characters are in group 42 (the last one) Since some of the characters of the 10x10 matrix could be lit at the same time you could avoid using two MAX7219, the following led-grouping could be optimized even more, but I'm happy with it. 11 spots in the matrix are unused, I placed random characters on them and put leds behind. I use 4 additional leds on the corners to show the exact minute. I used a 10x10 matrix for the characters/words, it's really easy to fit them all in a 10x11 matrix, but I wanted a 10x10 one. I would assume that since now they're more common, the price of one of them should be lot cheaper. Retail value of the clock, at the time, 899€. Original project had a 9V battery and 9V battery connector, add 7-8€ to the cost. 1 MAX7219 chip 1.5-2€? (can't remember the price, but you could buy 10 at ebay for 14€ + free shipping).1 Arduino nano 9-10€ (original was about 20€), there a lot of different models and places to buy it.I tried to recover all the information I wrote done when I first build this, I got most important information but some details and pictures are missing. Recently I decided to ditch out the old Arduino and replace it with a new nano model and power the whole thing with a USB wall adapter. I used an original Arduino (first model), and those had a small problem when they are powered by an external battery, making it implossible to boot propertly. This is my Word clock in Spanish using an Arduino in a 10x10 matrix, I did it some years ago, and was hanging powered off on a wall of my kitchen for the same time due to some Arduino problems.
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