Words-Clock: "a clock with some magic inside"

"An image is worth a thousand words"... but is a word worth a thousand numbers? I do not think so, but it can be a different and funny way to show the reality. As an example: "the Weasley clock", where there were no numbers inside, but a lot of magic. I replaced the magic with an Arduino, let's see the result!

1.- ?? The design

First of all it was necessary to create a CAD design in order to create in a second step the case of the clock. The characters inside must be able to create all possible time combinations ("it is three o'clock", "it is ten to eleven"...).

2.- ?? The case

It is time to translate a CAD design into stainless steel. Another option could have been a wooden case, but this metallic one is really really cool.

In order to illuminate correctly each word, it was necessary to manually build separate compartiments...

3. ??Testing the leds

This clock must be working day and night, so the leds must shine properly. For this reason it was necessary to perform some tests until choosing the correct value for the resistors... 100 Ohm :)

4. ??The electronics

The electronics schema used at this project is shown in the following picture:

• 1x Arduino Mega (controller board)
• 1x RTC-DS3231 (real time clock)
• 2x buttons (so as to adjust manually the time)
• 26x leds (with a 100-Ohm resistor each)

The schema it is easy on paper, but in order to mount all these components... a lot of wires were necessary...

5. ?? The software

The program is not complex :) Only a few code lines were developed in order to translate the RTC information into corresponding shinning leds. These code lines are available at the following GitHub repository:

6. ? Final result

It looks really nice! I am really proud of it :)

7. ?? The team

This project could not have been finished without the collaboration of Cristian Miguel, ángel Salas and Iker Ruiz de Mendoza.