Published June 12, 2019 © CC BY-NC-SA

Word Clock!

Are you tired of looking at spinning hands or plain numbers? This clock gives you the time in English!

IntermediateShowcase (no instructions)4,420

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Adafruit DS1307 RTC Breakout

Adafruit 24 Channel PWM LED Driver

Adafruit SD card to SPI adaptor

Arduino UNO

Speaker: 3W, 4 ohms

IRF540n N Channel Mosfet

1N4007 – High Voltage, High Current Rated Diode

Resistor 10k ohm

Micro Switch/Button

Micro SD Card Any size

Jumper wires (generic)

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Soldering iron (generic)

Solder Wire, Lead Free

Wire Stripper & Cutter, 18-10 AWG / 0.75-4mm² Capacity Wires

Laser cutter (generic)

Story

EDIT: 3/18/19 The world has been shut down from the corona virus outbreak. During this time I remade the designs for this clock with actual UI and not just through the serial port. A lot of design changes and a whole new code was created, so I'm not posting the new edition. However you can get the version two clock here on my Etsy page: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LeboeufLasing

Why?

Why not!

But really, I had a clock and it's alarm sound was basically an air raid siren. Therefore I took an Ipad and made it my alarm. You could then change alarm noise to something pleasant. The desk they were sitting on was too small though. I wanted an alarm clock that was customizable. Not an alarm and a clock.

The quest begins...

I immediately chose DIy because that is the ultimate customizability! For what type, I searched clocks on thingiverse. There was a clock that struck me as interesting. It used words! With a plan now, I hopped into Tinkercrap- cough cough sorry- Tinkercad and began designing. Tests wastes some wood but, eventually I got a design I was happy with. Cut, Assemble with hot glue, and add LED strips. As an aesthetic bonus I "stained" it white by lightly applying white spray paint.

Onto the electronics.

To control the 22 led strips, my original design was a board that had 22 transistors on it and connected an arduino mega, a 12 volt power supply and the LEDS. It caught on fire and I quickly moved to a purchased solution. Not because I was scared though. I just could not take any more soldering. The 24 Channel PWM Led Driver from Adafruit was the answer. 1 hour of soldering later, the LEDs worked and because of the drivers interface, I could downside to an arduino uno.

The clock needs an accurate way of keeping time. Adafruit to the rescue. Their ds1307 breakout board was very simple to hook up, and worked great. Not much excitement here.

The library I went with is called TMRPCM. It plays sound files off of an SD Card. The Adafruit SD Card adaptor I had lying around worked great! I quickly wired up a simple amplifier hooked to a speaker and stop button, and then it was time to code!

Code

This was uneventful, and took way less time than any of the other sections. In just one hour, the clock was fully functional. Except for one bug... Which was patched so don't worry about it.

How to operate:

For the alarm:

The variables alarmmin and alarmhour: set them to a time you wish the alarm to go off. For no alarm, set the alarmhours to -1. This clock operates in military time. Then reupload code. Follow this tutorial to make the sound for your alarm acceptable for TMRpcm: https://www.instructables.com/id/Audio-Player-Using-Arduino-With-Micro-SD-Card/

For the RTC:

The real time clock must be set to the right time. Upload code. Open the serial monitor, and set the baud rate to 57600. Then type in the current hour. Press enter. Then the current minute. Press enter. Then do the same for the seconds. The clock will update to this new time as soon as you update the seconds. Give about 1 second between entering each time(hours mins seconds) for the code to cycle.

Now you hopefully have a clock, or at least you know how I have mine. :)

Schematics

Code

The Code! Version 2

//Look though this code if you want. Anything with a comment is changeable.

#include <Adafruit_TLC5947.h>
#include <Wire.h>
#include <RTClib.h>
#include <SD.h>
#include <TMRpcm.h>
#include <SPI.h>

#define SD_ChipSelectPin 8
#define NUM_TLC5974 1
#define din 4
#define clock 5
#define latch 6
RTC_DS1307 rtc;
TMRpcm tmrpcm;
Adafruit_TLC5947 tlc = Adafruit_TLC5947(NUM_TLC5974, clock, din, latch);

//Alarm Times
byte alarmhours = 8;
byte alarmminutes = 0;

String inputString = "";
boolean stringComplete = false;
int t = 0;
int hou = 0;
int m = 0;
int s = 0;
String data = "";
bool buttonpress = false;
int light = 4096;
byte to = 0;
byte past = 0;
bool itis = false;
bool mins = false;
byte h = 0;
int button = 0;
bool alarmran = false;

void setup () {
  rtc.begin();
  inputString.reserve(200);

  tmrpcm.speakerPin = 9;
  if (!SD.begin(SD_ChipSelectPin))
  {
    Serial.println("SD fail");
    return;
  }
  //Speaker Volume 1-6 1=quiet 6=loudest + audio cliping. 5 is best
  tmrpcm.setVolume(5);


  Serial.begin(57600);
  if (! rtc.begin()) {
    Serial.println("Couldn't find RTC");
    while (1);
  }
  if (! rtc.isrunning()) {
    Serial.println("RTC is NOT running!");
    rtc.adjust(DateTime(2019, 6, 11, 0, 0, 0));
  }

  tlc.begin();
}

void displayupdate() {
  DateTime now = rtc.now();

  for (uint16_t i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
    tlc.setLED(i, 0, 0, 0);
  }

  past = 0;
  to = 0;

  itis = false;

  if (now.minute() > 25 && now.minute() <= 30) {
    tlc.setLED(0, light, light, 0);
    itis = true;
  }
  if (now.minute() > 5 && now.minute() <= 10) {
    tlc.setLED(0, light, 0, light);
    itis = true;
  }
  if (now.minute() > 45 && now.minute() <= 50) {
    tlc.setLED(0, light, 0, light);
    itis = true;
  }

  if (itis == false) {
    tlc.setLED(0, light, 0, 0);
  }

  if (now.minute() > 10 && now.minute() <= 15) {
    tlc.setLED(1, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (now.minute() > 40 && now.minute() <= 45) {
    tlc.setLED(1, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (now.minute() > 15 && now.minute() <= 20) {
    tlc.setLED(1, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (now.minute() > 35 && now.minute() <= 40) {
    tlc.setLED(1, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (now.minute() > 0 && now.minute() <= 5) {
    tlc.setLED(1, 0, 0, light);
  }
  if (now.minute() > 50 && now.minute() <= 55) {
    tlc.setLED(1, 0, 0, light);
  }
  if (now.minute() > 20 && now.minute() <= 25) {
    tlc.setLED(1, 0, light, light);
  }
  if (now.minute() > 30 && now.minute() <= 35) {
    tlc.setLED(1, 0, light, light);
  }

  if (now.minute() > 30 && now.minute() < 55) {
    to = 1;
  }
  if (now.minute() < 31 && now.minute() > 0) {
    past = 1;
  }

  mins = false;
  if (now.minute() > 5 && now.minute() <= 10) {
    tlc.setLED(2, light, light * to, light * past);
    mins = true;
  }
  if (now.minute() > 45 && now.minute() <= 50) {
    tlc.setLED(2, light, light * to, light * past);
    mins = true;
  }
  if (now.minute() > 15 && now.minute() <= 25) {
    tlc.setLED(2, light, light * to, light * past);
    mins = true;
  }
  if (now.minute() > 30 && now.minute() <= 40) {
    tlc.setLED(2, light, light * to, light * past);
    mins = true;
  }
  if (now.minute() > 50 && now.minute() <= 55) {
    tlc.setLED(2, light, light * to, light * past);
    mins = true;
  }
  if (now.minute() > 0 && now.minute() <= 5) {
    tlc.setLED(2, light, light * to, light * past);
    mins = true;
  }

  if (mins == false) {
    tlc.setLED(2, 0, light * to, light * past);
  }

  if (now.minute() > 30 && now.minute() < 55) {
    h = now.hour() + 1;
  }
  if (now.minute() <= 30) {
    h = now.hour();
  }

  if (h == 1) {
    tlc.setLED(3, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (h == 2) {
    tlc.setLED(3, 0, 0, light);
  }
  if (h == 3) {
    tlc.setLED(3, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (h == 4) {
    tlc.setLED(4, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (h == 5) {
    tlc.setLED(4, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (h == 6) {
    tlc.setLED(4, 0, 0, light);
  }
  if (h == 7) {
    tlc.setLED(5, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (h == 8) {
    tlc.setLED(5, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (h == 9) {
    tlc.setLED(5, 0, 0, light);
  }
  if (h == 10) {
    tlc.setLED(6, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (h == 11) {
    tlc.setLED(6, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (h == 12) {
    tlc.setLED(6, 0, 0, light);
  }

  if (h == 13) {
    tlc.setLED(3, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (h == 14) {
    tlc.setLED(3, 0, 0, light);
  }
  if (h == 15) {
    tlc.setLED(3, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (h == 16) {
    tlc.setLED(4, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (h == 17) {
    tlc.setLED(4, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (h == 18) {
    tlc.setLED(4, 0, 0, light);
  }
  if (h == 19) {
    tlc.setLED(5, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (h == 20) {
    tlc.setLED(5, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (h == 21) {
    tlc.setLED(5, 0, 0, light);
  }
  if (h == 22) {
    tlc.setLED(6, light, 0, 0);
  }
  if (h == 23) {
    tlc.setLED(6, 0, light, 0);
  }
  if (h == 0) {
    tlc.setLED(6, 0, 0, light);
  }

  if (now.minute() == 0 or now.minute() > 55) {
    tlc.setLED(7, light, 0, 0);
  }


  tlc.write();
}

void addition() {
  DateTime now = rtc.now();
  // Dims Light
  if (now.hour() < 6 or now.hour() > 21) {//Change the times for on/off light dimming
    light = 500; //Dimmest 0-4096
  }
  else {
    light = 4096;// Brightest
  }
}

void(* resetFunc) (void) = 0;

void loop () {
  //Set time from Serial Monitor. Enter each number hours,minutes,second press enter in between
  serialEvent();
  displayupdate();
  addition();

  if (stringComplete) {
    Serial.println(h);
    t = inputString.toInt();
    if (hou != 0 && m != 0 && s == 0) {
      s = t;
    }
    if (hou != 0 && m == 0) {
      m = t;
    }
    if (hou == 0) {
      hou = t;
    }
    if (hou != 0 && m != 0 && s != 0) {
      rtc.adjust(DateTime(2000, 0, 0, hou, m, s));
      hou = 0;
      m = 0;
      s = 0;
    }
    inputString = "";
    stringComplete = false;
  }

  //Alarm
  DateTime now = rtc.now();
  if (alarmhours == now.hour() && alarmminutes == now.minute() && alarmran == false) {
    tmrpcm.play("test.wav");
    do {
      button = analogRead(0);
      if (button > 800) {
        buttonpress = false;

      }
      else {
        buttonpress = true;
        tmrpcm.disable();
      }
    } while (tmrpcm.isPlaying() == 1 && buttonpress == false);
    alarmran = true;
    tmrpcm.disable();
  }

  if (now.hour() == 12 && now.minute() == 1 && now.second() == 15) {
    //alarmran = false;
    delay(1000);
    resetFunc();
  }
  if (now.hour() == 1 && now.minute() == 1 && now.second() == 15) {
    //alarmran = false;
    delay(1000);
    resetFunc();
  }

  delay(1000);
}



void serialEvent() {
  while (Serial.available()) {
    char inChar = (char)Serial.read();
    inputString += inChar;
    if (inChar == '\n') {
      stringComplete = true;
    }
  }
}

Word Clock!

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Custom parts and enclosures

Case

Schematics

The Schematic

Code

The Code! Version 2

Credits

NoraTheDoggo

Comments

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Word Clock!

Word Clock!

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Custom parts and enclosures

Case

Schematics

The Schematic

Code

The Code! Version 2

Credits

NoraTheDoggo

Comments

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