A Mixed Generation Clock

Hi all,

Started this project 1 month back, because of my bad health (Got caught by dengue) it took a longer time. I normally make Arduino based project, so to do a clock project was quite interesting.

To make an interesting project I checked a lot of clock-related projects and clock faces, and finally came up with making a mix generation clock.

It contains a minute sandglass, a 90-degree watch dial to give the hour and 2 seven segment display to show the minutes.

Let's build it.

Step 1: Materials Required

1. 4 Piece 1cm * 3cm * 8cm (h*w*l) wood block. with.
2. Icecream sticks.
3. 2 piece of 180 servo motor
4. 2 piece of seven-segment display.
5. Wood drill machine.
6. Ardunio nano.
7. Power supply 5v 1Amp.
8. Sapre wood pieces.
9. Female to Female cable.
10. Sandglass of one minute.

Step 2: Setting Up Sand-glass and Servo

1. Make a square hole in one of the frames so that it can easily attach to the servo.
2. mark the servo outline put it on wood, and make whole near to each other using a drill.
3. Secure the servo using some hot glue or super glue.
4. Created a small box same size as sandglass.
5. Attached servo gearhead in the middle of the box as shown in the figure.
6. Made a small hole in another side of the box so that it will give space for the screwdriver to mount the box to the servo.
7. Attach the servo pin to pin number 12 of Arduino.
8. Run the attached code.
9. Send 0 and 180 in the serial monitor and check for sandglass rotation.
10. Fix the flaws if any.

Step 3: Make the Frame

1. Now attach other wood pieces and make it a square box.
2. Decide the second servo position for hour dail.
3. Use ice cream stick to cover the front face.

Step 4: Make the Dail

1. With help of super glue attach the servo head to it.
2. Then use the attached program, open the serial monitor of the Arduino app.
3. Send 0,8,16,24,32,40,48,56,64,72,80,88,96 one by one and set the wood piece.
4. These are the 12 intervals of the clock with each 8 degrees difference.
5. Servo signal pin is attached to pin 12, you can change accordingly to set the dial.

Step 5: Seven-segment Display for Mins

1. Using the drill with the smallest drill bit create whole in the front face.
2. 10 in the upper row and 10 in the lower row.
3. So that 2 seven segment display can slide easily and after that use the super glue to fix it.
4. By this time we are done with the whole clock.
5. Now we need to set the seven segment display.

Pins of two seven segment display.

static const uint8_t digital_pins[] = {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8};

static const uint8_t analog_pins[] = {A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, 9};

1st seven segments: a,b,c,d,e,f,g pins of the diagram will be connected to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 pins of the Arduino.

2nd seven segments: a,b,c,d,e,f,g pins of the diagram will be connected to A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, 9 pins of the Arduino.

Run the code and check if it is blinking 9 to 0 properly or not.

Step 6: Assemble All

1. Once everything is assembled the clock will look like as per the image.
2. Pin 12 for hour hand servo.
3. Pin 11 for sandglass servo.
4. Other pins are same as per seven-segments pins.
5. Set time by changing the values of below number in the program.
   • int hours = 1;
   • int minutes = 9;
   • int sec = 0;