LED Clock

A 24-hour clock with hour, minute, and second indicators. Here's the catch, despite being a digital media (LED's) it is still displaying using an analog method (circles!). I finished making this clock months ago but did not bring it with me to school so I wasn't able to take pictures and all until now. I have been very excited to get this up since I think it is sooooo cool :)

It functions as a very pretty piece of functional art. However, it is missing a home since I do not have space where I live for it :( so it is staying con mis padres at the moment.

It is approximately 30" tall and about 30 lbs? (hard to tell since it is awkward to hold). This makes it difficult to mount to wall (I havn't tried yet). It actually stands on its own surprisingly well by balancing between two of the seconds rods.

Anyways! enjoy this fantastic piece of art and technology!

Here is video. You can see some ghosting and glitching. The ghosting can probably be solved with just using a slightly higher resistor? the glitches are just because some of the wires are loose. I took this video after a few months of this sitting in the cellar and didn't bother to go through the long debugging process of ensuring all proper connections...

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Step 1: Materials

For this project you will need access to welding equipment and metal cutting tools. I used a horizontal bandsaw to cut all the tubes to their appropriate length and then used a MIG welder to weld them all together. I also incorporated a curved piece of 1/8" bar to form a circle 30" in diameter. This used a curler, but can be done without. The only other major tool I used was a soldering iron for the LEDs. Needlenose pliers, helper hands, and safety-wear go a long way to aid you though!

Materials:

120 tubes 3" long (60 sec + 60 min) = 360" of tubing = 30 feet of 1" steel tubing (this is the hardest part to get just because you need so much)
24 tubes 2" long (24 hours) = 48" = 4 ft 3" diameter tubing (I used a broken table support for this)
100-200 ft of as thin of wire as you can find (magnet wire is a good option). Also, try to get black wire to blend in better.
144 LEDs
- 60 for the seconds (choose color A)
- 60 for the minutes (choose color B)
- 24 for the hours (choose color C)
24 resistors (100 ohms or close)
Arduino MEGA (you could work to put it onto regular arduino but we need 24 I/O pins in this build)
DS 1307 (found here)

emdarcher says: Dec 4, 2012. 8:12 AM

you could use the new arduino leonardo, same size as the UNO, but has more IO pins. 18 digital (extras are in ICSP header and the rx LED, and maybe more), and 12 analog inputs, 6 are in the IO pins so you wouldn't use those, but the other 6 are in the regular analog pins female header. 18 IO pins + 6 analog pins (can be used as IO pins) = 24 total usable pins! just enough for this project.

here is an instructable on the arduino leonardo:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Step-by-Step-Guide-to-the-Arduino-Leonardo/

I might make this, but smaller, and with only 12 hours + LED to show AM/PM, probably a red-green bicolor LED(have some from old electronics). I have a leonardo (I was lucky and got one of the first released ones at makerfaire Bay Area), but will probably use a homebuilt arduino UNO clone or similar. nice project!

LostRite (author) in reply to emdarcherDec 5, 2012. 6:45 AM

If I was to redo it, the arduino would go altogether and I would just use an atmega. Maybe one day when I want that arduino back I will make the swap... as for the bi-color red/green LED, thats brilliant. I debated the 12/24 hr time for some time and only chose 24-hr time for size reasons. Good luck! and post pictures!