BlackberryJamMan

No, I have had a version of this clock running in a public place for about 4 years without it needing to be rebooted. I suspect that your device might be losing connection with the internet. This could be because of the power supply....if the voltage drops when all the lights are illuminated, it could cause it to have problems.I love your mirror clock design - nice work!

You can download the code from https://content.instructables.com/ORIG/FZS/EKMZ/KKTQE0R7/FZSEKMZKKTQE0R7.ino

They are two different projects by different people. You could go to that project page and post a comment there if you have any questions about it.

Are you referring to my code or to mr_fid's example?

I think the connection sequence is more of a concern when testing out using neopixels. I have certainly killed a neopixel strip when experimenting with them and not following this connection procedure. When the circuit is fully connected and has the added protection of the current limiting resistor and spike-reducing capacitor, it really is not a problem to connect the power via the jack socket.

Thank you - you are right - I think I was in the middle of writing some Python when I edited the response :-)There is a bit of flexibility on the resistor and capactitor values, so I am sure you will be fine. Check out the uberguide in the reference list for safety advice if you haven't used neopixels before.

Another nice way to present the time. Thanks for sharing.

My pleasure - you have added a nice feature to the design - thank you for sharing.

Great job - old school is good - a nice development to the design. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you. I used the MP1584EN board.

Thank you. I think the SGP4 library will be my next stage of development. I will take a look at the magnitude code too.....all good ideas - thanks.

I get a lot of my components from Aliexpress.The slip ring was a 6-channel 2A model with a 12.5 mm diameter body and 24mm diameter top ring with three securing holes.The DC buck converter (MP1584EN) is wired to the battery pack and secured inside the battery compartment with double sided foam tape.I designed a space for the DIKAVS 5v buzzer (but I haven't incorporated this into my software yet).

A nice idea. I think that is certainly possible using this type of design.

Thank you. It's a nice idea to add a laser pointer but I think it would need a re-design. I know there are some sensitivities about using laser pointers continuously pointed in the sky due to the risk to aircraft, so I think I would want to be able to control it and switch it off after a quick pulse of light to show where it is pointing. This is a problem as the arm is currently able to continuously rotate, so I would perhaps need to incorporate a second slip ring to provide power and control to a laser module....I think the design would start to get bulky and a bit too complex. However, I am currently working on a different design to achieve this on another project ......watch out for a new instructable in the future :-).

Thank you. Some nice development ideas to think about too.

Thank you for your generous feedback. The technique, I use is decomposition. Each of the big problems is broken down into smaller, more manageable ones. Once all of the small problems have been solved, the final product should work too.

It's just a name......I used it to pay respect to Bram's original idea. Of course, it wouldn't be difficult to mark the actual equinoxes with a light show......how about getting the top half then the bottom half to light up referencing the equal lengths of night and day?

Thank you. There are already some nice 3D printed Stargate models....I wonder if someone will do a mashup of these two projects?

This is the beauty of sharing these ideas - lots of different things to try out until you get the style you like. The decaying pixels are a nice idea...I think you will have to solve the problem of working out the number of the pixel before and after the one you want to illuminate.....this will be a bit tricky when it transitions from 59 --> 0 but is perfectly possible. Have fun experimenting and good luck.

Thank you. It should be easy to transfer to a different NTP server. In America you could use north-america.pool.ntp.org or you could use the generic pool.ntp.org and the system should find the closest server for your region.I think the rules for daylight saving time in America are different from the UK.The rules are that DST:begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March (at 2 a.m. the local time time skips ahead to 3 a.m. so there is one less hour in the day)ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November (at 2 a.m. the local time becomes 1 a.m. and that hour is repeated, so there is an extra hour in the day)Look in the main loop() and change the code// find the second Sunday in March(3) as the day the time switches to DST // start at March 1 and work forwards to find the first Sun…

Thank you. It should be easy to transfer to a different NTP server. In America you could use north-america.pool.ntp.org or you could use the generic pool.ntp.org and the system should find the closest server for your region.I think the rules for daylight saving time in America are different from the UK.The rules are that DST:begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March (at 2 a.m. the local time time skips ahead to 3 a.m. so there is one less hour in the day)ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November (at 2 a.m. the local time becomes 1 a.m. and that hour is repeated, so there is an extra hour in the day)Look in the main loop() and change the code// find the second Sunday in March(3) as the day the time switches to DST // start at March 1 and work forwards to find the first Sunday....then add 7 days to find the second Sunday int find_start_BST = 1; while (find_day_of_the_week(find_start_BST, 3, year())!= "Sunday"){ find_start_BST+=1; }find_start_BST+=7; # add 7 days to find the second Sunday // find the first Sunday in November (11) as the day the time switches back // start at November 1 and work forwards to find the Sunday int find_start_GMT = 1; while (find_day_of_the_week(find_start_GMT, 11, year())!= "Sunday"){ find_start_GMT+=1; }There are also some differences in the times that the switch takes place.// find the unix timestamp for the switch over dates starting at 2 o'clock in the morning long BST_begins = makeTime(2,0,0,find_start_BST,3,year()); long GMT_begins = makeTime(2,0,0,find_start_GMT,11,year());Let me know if you get it working - good luck.

Thank you - I am glad that you got it working.If you have two rings and they are behaving differently (with the same software), it would suggest that the wiring is different for each one? Did you check the soldering connections on the LED ring?