Have you ever seen a pocket calculator from the 1970s? If you have, you know that many used a series of tiny, red, LED seven-segment displays. These displays used little "bars" of light-emitting material which were placed behind little magnifying bubbles to make them more readily visible. They were very crisp and readable, and used a lot less power than vacuum fluorescent displays (VFD), which were also in use at that time.
I recall the little LED bubble displays were at one time in all sorts of handheld electronics and, in a slightly different form, watches. By the time LCDs became cheap in the late 1970's, the more power-hungry LED display was on its way out.
I was pleasantly surprised back in 2011 to find on ebay a seller with numerous rails of HP 5082-7433 LED displays. These are three-digit displays in a 12-pin standard DIP format. I bought a few rails since the price was good. I've a tendency to get "stuff" and then never get around to using it so I decided this time there would be a project to make use of all the displays.
The "Tnychron" clock was born!
I recall the little LED bubble displays were at one time in all sorts of handheld electronics and, in a slightly different form, watches. By the time LCDs became cheap in the late 1970's, the more power-hungry LED display was on its way out.
I was pleasantly surprised back in 2011 to find on ebay a seller with numerous rails of HP 5082-7433 LED displays. These are three-digit displays in a 12-pin standard DIP format. I bought a few rails since the price was good. I've a tendency to get "stuff" and then never get around to using it so I decided this time there would be a project to make use of all the displays.
The "Tnychron" clock was born!
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Signing UpStep 1: Design
Design requirements:
- 1970s-looking retro case
- Arduino IDE environment project
- use the HP displays effectively
- make it play music
- make it easy to use
- 1970s-looking retro case
- Arduino IDE environment project
- use the HP displays effectively
- make it play music
- make it easy to use
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And nice job on the retro look. Have a look at the Heathkit GC-1092 electronic clock kit that was sold in the 1970s. Very similar looking. It was the fancy version of the GC-1005.
had a look and feel that can't be duplicated by the modern
hi-tech alarm gadgets. And, recall that the very first run of
digital clocks, around 1972, retailed for thousands of dollars.
Thanks for a great project.
As for the displays, if you can't find the originals, there is an eBay seller who currently has a unified 9-digit, 7-segment bubble display which is common-cathode and could definitely be made to fit in the Serapac A20 case.