Sports 7 Segment Display, Digital Clock That Talks

Sports 7 Segment Display, Digital Clock That Talks

Description

Hi, This is my art project for one of my university classes. I wanted to make a clock that looks good. First I wanted something mechanical at least for the part that outputs the time but it seemed like too much trouble so I decided to go with the good old 7 segments. But while I am at it I wanted the segments to be special. This design belongs to Posy and I made it 3D printable:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTB5XhjbgZA&t=18s, http://www.michieldb.nl/other/segments/ This clock also features a speaker for telling the time with Talkie library. This one to be exact: https://github.com/ArminJo/Talkie Some other features are PWM brightness control for the LEDs and auto brigntness adjust with the LDR on top plus moisture, temperature sensor. I made it so that it asks random simple math questions. I did not bother with programming an alarm function but you can set the time on the fly with the top buttons. The design is fully modular so you can print the top and side panels seperately and change stuff. Also it is designed in a way that you can print it without any supports. Digits can be printed seperately for using in other projects. For the digits difusers I used some white filament on bottom later 0.2mm thick and the rest I printed in bronze PLA. The segments are empty and you push the LEDs in to the back panel. The tolerances are quite tight so print some test prints first. I put a simple G4 pause command to stop the printer for filament changing after first layer, but be careful when doing the same since if it pauses on the part it will leave a bad smudge. So put a sacrificial one layer print to pause on first layer or wait for printer to move over to print the secon layer of the skirt if you use one. One more thing to note is that this consumes a lot of power because contrast is not great. To be exact it pulls enough current that if you usb cable is long Arudino will drop off and can go into a start and shutdown loop when the speaker initiates. For this reason I have a switch to change the LED drive voltage from 6V to 5V from a boost converter. Boosting to 6V boost converter is needed for my speaker amplifier module, even though it works at 5V the volume is bit underwhelming. You can skip using it all together and use smaller than 220ohm resistors for LEDs but I use its micro usb port for powering the clock so it is nice to have. The LEDs are driven with common shift registers and pnp transistors so in the code the logic for LEDs are inverted (off for on, on for off). It is kind of a mess so feel free to ask me about the electronics if you desire to make a copy. Read the Read Me for hardware details but it is bit outdated since I worked on the code bit more after submitting this as course project. Let me know if there is anything missing. Here is a demo video of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrYwxv41JsA&t=730s

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Electronics