Sleek word clock

Inspired by drj113's great instructable on making a word clock, I wanted to make my own.  After seeing the (extremely overpriced) commercial "qlocktwo" word clock, I decided to borrow its smooth glossy black design while basing the innards of my clock on drj113's design.

In the end, I managed to stuff the arduino and LED's inside an IKEA shadow box, and used printed transparencies to create the black letter mask.

Step 1 The materials

This is what you need:

1 Ikea RIBBA shadow box - $10
98 white LEDs - $7-10 (buy in bulk on ebay)
98 1KOhm resistors - $3
1 Arduino (or an ATMega168/ATMega328 and extra hardware - 5V regulator, crystal, etc) - $7 (for standalone chip and extra hardware) or $30 for arduino USB board
3 ULN2003A Driver ICs - $1.89 at Digikey
3 HCF4094 shift registers - $1.44 at Digikey
1 Barrel-plug connector - $0.38 at Digikey
2 Buttons - scavenged from old electronics
1 6V or 7V DC wall wart - scavenged from old electronics, or ~$4 online
1 sheet colored paper (used for a hint of color around the border)
1 9" square piece of cardboard (used to hold LEDs in place)
1 cereal box (cut up to make light baffles - see step 3)
1 black garbage bag
2 printed transparencies (see attached pdf on step 2) - $1
1 protoboard for microcontroller, driver ICs, etc. - $5

Total cost: around $44 (using standalone ATMega168) or $67 (if you buy a full Arduino)

optionally a breadboard is useful for prototyping the circuit

Comments

[gigsgtox]

Alls well and good on mine (Thanks for an awesome instruction set and information). I have a potentiometer hooked up, and adjusted the code line and it dims everything EXCEPT the "IT IS" line of code. I currently have this attached to the HIGH as it is always on, however the high is of course, not effected by the PWM. Where should I hook up the "IT IS" LED's to utilize the dimming?

[scottbez1]

If you have an NPN transistor laying around, you can hook the collector to the cathode side of the IT IS string, connect the base though a 1K resistor to pin 15 of the ATMega (which is also connected to the OE pins on the shift registers), and connect the emitter to ground. kawsOne drew up a pretty nice schematic that has the transistor: http://i55.tinypic.com/o6b2tc.png

[Regnillif]

Hi Scott,

Great tutorial and because of your tutorial I am just finishing up a clock which is my first electronics project. Everything is working correctly except my photo resister dimmer. I adjusted the Arduino code and the lights will dim when it gets dark but after about 7-10seconds the whole clock goes dark. Turn room lights back on and the clock lights up again. Any tips or ideas on what I need to do? I tried a couple different photo resisters but same results.

Thank you

[pmck]

I hope this isnt too late you can limit the minimum value of the dimmer in the code like this:

lightLevel = analogRead(**your analog pin IN here**);
mappedlevel = map(lightLevel,0,1000,0,255);

if(mappedlevel<40) mappedlevel =40 ;

analogWrite(**your analog OUT pin here** , mappedlevel);

[Regnillif]

Thanks pmck. I did manage to figure it out on my own. Looks like I did something similar to what you suggested. I actually made the clock as a gift so I want to make one for myself now so I will try your suggestion.

Thanks again.

[Dude Man]

I used a 12V DC Wall Wart and smoked my 5V Regulator. DOH!!! Wait...There's more! I then proceeded to burn my finger on the smoking regulator as I pulled it from the circuit! It's ok, I didn't need that section of my finger prints anyways, ha ha.
So anyways, Is 12V too much to come down from?

[Dude Man]

Would there be anything wrong with using a 5V wall wart and forget the Voltage Regulator?

[pmck]

for this it would be fine, but wall warts typically have a lot of noise in the output, especially if they are cheap. You could juts use a capacitor and a diode to smooth the current

[Dude Man]

Beuller?

[gigsgtox]

Everything should run fine off the 5V wall wart as it has a 5V voltage regulator built into it. I'm not a circuits guru however so I'm not promising anything.

[purpulhaze]

I don't understand the power part. What is the regulator for? Couldn't I just use a 5 volt wall wart? Is the regulator used only if I going to make a standalone with the atmega 168?

[pmck]

yes, if you use the arduino board it is built in

[TheGeebs]

Do I just take out the ATmega chip from the arduino and put in the ATMega128 to program?

[jenny0122]

Is there any way to add the minutes like on the original (the dot in each corner)?

[pmck]

I'm new to electronics will any 8bit shift register work with this? I'm having trouble sourcing the HCF4049 ones above where I live.

[arego]

I loved your clock, and am currently purchasing all the materials to build my own. I was wondering if these materials will work, as I am not experienced at all in electronics (as in I've soldered once) so please excuse my ignorance. I am looking at these items : ULN2003AG ULN2003A SOP16 DRIVER IC a, as well as HCF4094BE DIP-16 HCF4094 STORE BUS REGISTER ST. Will these work for me? In addition, what size barrel plug connector do I need? I bought the Arduino Duemilanove ATmega328.

[Dude Man]

Troubleshooting Help: I got the clock up and running but it flashes between words every second. Is my clock off? Wires crossed somewhere? What would be causing this to happen?

[The.Sniper]

Ok as promised My Qlocks are done I still need to do a final clean up and inspection But they have been running for over 100 hours now Im happy with their turnout. each clock has 2 lens 1 black and 1 white. I will add that Since I decided to go with Mid output LED's I underestimated the the load this would have on an arduino. and had to add a PS/regulator setup at the last minute. It was an unexpected addition and had I known I would have already added it to the PCB's I built.

A full pic gallery can be seen here.
http://gallery.me.com/thesniper#100122

Its been a long 6 months!
-TheSniper-

[bjarrett2]

OHHH! I want a white one!!! Would you consider selling me a white one? :)

[Moab]

Hello,

I find it hard to prevent the light from bleeding between lit words and unlit words. I think my light baffles are not evenly cut enough. Does someone have a tip about that ?

Also Scottbez, i wonder if you kept the original glass screen of the ikea frame or removed it. I have kept it, and it is not bad

[Cello62]

I personally do not have this problem, the separation must touch the layer of acetate sheet so that the light does not spread by side.

I have kept the glass

http://www.instructables.com/id/My-Arduino-WordClock/

[cvaast]

Scottbez, in what did you make your template & what are the font and size of your text? Because I am trying to make a dutch one and I already have my lettertemplate, I just need to pour it into a printable form like yours...

[Cello62]

Hello
Can you post pls any photo of the back clock to see how you are mounted the board and settled the wire?
Thanks

[robear00]

I'm extremely new to this and haven't touched electronics since my Digital Logic class back in 1994 (which I didn't do very well). Anyway, I am having a hell of a time trying to find the parts to put this together. Notably, the ICs and the shift registers. I tried finding them on Digikey, but searching by the model numbers do not come up. Someone asked this question before, but I didn't see an answer. Does anyone have a link or links to the parts themselves, that way I don't buy the wrong things? As much as I like drj113's kit, it's too pricey and I want to build this on my own from scratch. I planned on going with the arduino USB board, so no need for the extra things on the standard board.

Thanks.

[squishface]

To find the part numbers for the ICs and shift registers, I just grabbed the part numbers from the full-size versions of the photos in step 7.

Driver IC: ULN2003APG
Shift Register: HCF4094BE

Search these on DigiKey and you should get what you need

[robear00]

Thanks, I was able to figure most of it out thanks to Mouser Electronics. The one gripe I have about this Instructable is that the parts list is not consistent with the instructions. For those of us that are electrically illiterate, it would be nice to see every component used, including tools. I still have to get the wiring (which I'm wondering if there is a specification on those), circuit board (I got the protoboard, but didn't process the fact that I need this to test and an actual board for the final product), and a 7-pin header (or headers; not sure how many I need and if there is a specification on these either).

The only thing that I'm wary about now is the wiring itself. It would be nice if the schematic had all of the registers and ICs so I had more detail on where to solder. Thankfully, I have a friend that went to school for electrical engineering, so I may (will) have to get some help from him.

[robear00]

Finally finished with the clock and it is working pretty well. For all of you extreme newbies out there like me, here are a couple things that I ran into while on this journey:

1. The specific resistors that I used are 470 ohm 1/4 watt resistors. 1 K ohm will work, just make sure you get 1/4 watt resistors. Any bigger and they won't fit in the LED layout very well.

2. Instead of the piece of cardboard to hold the LEDs, I used foam board. It's kinda a pain to drill the holes for the LEDs, but they have a nice, snug fit. I also used foam board for the light baffles, which forced me to put all of the electronics on the outside (I probably could have cut it down a little more, but I already glued the baffles on).

3. In terms of the transparencies, I needed to use four sheets. Two did not appear dark enough with the light coming through. Have a fifth sheet printed to use as your template for the LED holder. For whatever reason, whenever I printed off a copy of the word sheet, I could never get the lettering to line up.

4. Solid wire is your best friend. 22-gauge. Stranded wire is not fun when you are a novice at soldering. Plus solid wire is so much eaiser to test with on the breadboard.

5. As stated in one of the other comments on this thread, if you use the Arduino board (as I did), you do not need the barrel plug, crystal, capacitors, or the voltage regulator.

6. For a full schmatic and other little tidbits, this site helped tremendously: http://www.highonsolder.com/blog/2011/1/8/arduino-word-clock.html

[geraldongrock]

Hi all, i basically have zero background on electronics but i really wanna make this for a gift. i need some help here! i understood everything right up till this step. So i have a couple of questions,

1) If i get the Arduino board, i wouldn't be able to fit it inside the frame? Does this mean i have to get the ATMega and all the addons?
2) How does one go about programming the Arduino board?

I'm really confused and don't know what's going on haha, i'll appreciate all the help i can get!

[mkane]

You could try make a custom frame for the clock if the arduino didn't fit, the arduino is pretty skinny but I'd say it would be a tight enough fit getting everything to sit nicely inside the frame.
To program the Arduino board you use Arduino software which is very easy to use. You write some code that you want your micro-controller to do and you upload it to the board using a USB.
You should check out the arduino website.. www.arduino.cc! There are also some great tutorials on programming the arduino on youtube!

[Moab]

Hello Scottbez, which font and size did you use, please ?

[howellboyd]

I'm wondering how you came up with your values for the LED resistor? Isn't it calculated by "(Supply Voltage - Forward Voltage) / (Current)"? With the 5V supply voltage and a typical forward voltage of 3.3 for a white LED it says that a 20mA you should use a 135ohm and a 270ohm for 10mA. Please let me know what I'm doing wrong!

[The.Sniper]

I tink you did a great job for the $$ FWiW I am nearing the end of my Word clock build
I decide to build 2 for a good friend of mine and ended up building 3 the 1 off is the
prototype then I apply to the other 2...
I think some of the things that separate mine form the other's I have seen are.
1: Its size min is a square 19 x 19
2: It has a magnetic removable lens cover Just like the orig one. this allows for quick color changes.
3: It all self contained by parts built entirely by me. No Ikea no nothing
With 1 exception the arduino
4: The use of the arduino I figured its well worth the small amount extra by using it instead of using a dedicated atmel setup.
Some reasons include Its ready to roll Its easy to get did I mention cheap?
Even though I CnC'd my own circuit boards I could have just as easily did away with it. But Like I said the Pro's outweigh the cons.

Anyways Im not completely done But am quickly nearing the finish line.
Pics of my build can be seen here on my Mobile me site.
Their are tons of pics with plenty of closeups.

http://gallery.me.com/thesniper#100122

feel free to email me with any questions or comments.
Once done Ill post up my version of an instruct -able.

[Chiefston]

Do you think it is feasible to use a clear transparency for the top layer and a frosted transparency for the back layer, to create the diffused light effect? Instead of using the black trash bag? I was considering printing onto the glass myself, or as you also mentioned, using an acrylic sticker or something. Your transparency idea worked great though!

[scottbez1]

Yeah, that would probably work alright. The main purpose of the black garbage bag is to diffuse the focused/directional light from the LEDs and "dim" the un-lit letters. The garbage bag happened to be the first thing I came across that worked well, but I'm sure plenty of other things would work just as well. I'm a little worried though that the frosted transparency might be a bit too light, so there would be less contrast between the lit and unlit letters. If you try it definitely post back and tell me how it goes - I'm about to start making another one of these, so any improvements would be great!

[The.Sniper]

you say "black garbage bag"
How were you able to apply the material and get the edges clean cut without destroying the letter template.

Also I have yet to see methods that people are using to secure their front glass/plastic panel to the frame. the factory one uses magnets.

Thanks !

[yoghurt-feen]

That sounds really great scottbez1! Your wordclock is by far the best one i have seen, and most beautiful! It could be nice with some more pictures and more detailed explanations for rookies like me! Looking forward!

[bjb331]

Just finished my word clock, thanks for the great instructable! Pic here: http://bit.ly/fOhZgh (bad glare, but you get the idea).

I have some background in electronics but this was my first Arduino project and I'm glad I did it. It'll be a great gift for my girlfriend's birthday.

[scottbez1]

Looks great! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[bvbernard]

Another option for a diffuser is to use parchment paper (from the grocery store) instead of the garbage bag. I've used parchment paper and it works very nicely. Wax paper would also work.

[andrea_Stef]

hello exactly where you installed the potentiometer?