Links
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Archives
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
Meta
Category Archives: clock hacks
Turn Old Pinball Parts Into A Unique Digital Clock
It’s getting ever harder to build a truly unique digital clock. From electronic displays to the flip-dots and flip-cards, everything seems to have been done to death. But this pinball scoring reel clock manages to keep the unique clock ball in play, as it were.
It’s not entirely clear whom to credit with this build, but the article was written by [Lucky]. Nor do they mention which pinball machine gave up its electromechanical scoring display for the build. Our guess would be a machine from the ’60s, before the era of score inflation that required more than the four digits …read more
Posted in classic hacks, clock hacks, coil, DS3231 RTC, electromagnet, ESP8266, MOSFETT, pinball
Leave a comment
NTP Morse Code Clock Powered by ESP8266
We’ve featured a great many unique clocks here on Hackaday, which have utilized nearly every imaginable way of conveying the current time. But of all these marvelous timepieces, the Morse code clock has the distinct honor of simultaneously being the easiest to construct and (arguably) the most difficult to read. As such, it’s little surprise we don’t see them very often. Which makes this latest entry into the field all the more interesting.
[WhisleyTangoHotel] has taken the basic concept of the Morse clock, which at its most simplistic could be done with a microcontroller and single LED, and expanded it …read more
Posted in classic hacks, clock, clock hacks, ESP8266, led, Microcontrollers, morse code, ntp
Leave a comment
An Arduino Wrapped In An OLED Wrapped Inside An Enigma Pocket Watch
A pocket watch, tucked into a waistcoat pocket and trailing a long chain, is a retro-hip accessory. A pocket watch gutted of its mechanical innards and updated as a smart appliance might be a horological abomination, but would still be a cool hack. A pocket watch converted to a digital Enigma machine is in a class all by itself.
[Simon] admits that he has a thing for pocket timepieces, having a sizable collection of old and not-so-old watches, some that even serve for everyday carry. Trouble is, they eventually break, and qualified watchmakers are getting hard to come by. So …read more
Posted in arduino, clock hacks, enigma, horology, oled, pocket watch
Leave a comment
Analog Clock Goes Digital, or Vice Versa
Designing a good clock takes a lot of considerations. It’s not just hands, faces, and numbers anymore; there are also word clocks, electronic clocks, marble clocks, or water clocks, and just about anything else imaginable can be used to tell time. Of course, electronic clocks are great for their versatility, and this one shows off an analog-looking clock that is (of course) digital, leveraging all of the perks of analog with all of the upsides of digital electronics.
One of the key design considerations that [Sasa] had while building this piece was that it needed to be silent. LEDs certainly …read more
Posted in analog, clock, clock hacks, digital, led, Nucleo, ring, ST32F103, stm
Leave a comment
Advent Calendar Tracks The Days Until Christmas
What’s a hacker to do when Halloween’s over and a new source of ideas is needed for more hacks? Make something for Christmas of course. That’s what [Dario Breitenstein] did when he made his Advent calendar both as a decoration and to help instill some Christmas spirit.
Designed in SketchUp, it’s a WS2812 LED strip mounted in a clean looking walnut enclosure. The light diffuses through 3D-printed PETG lids with vinyl over them to outline the days. Naturally, it had to be Internet-connected and so an ESP8266 based WEMOS D1 mini board fetches the date and time from an NTP …read more
Posted in advent calendar, clock hacks, ESP8266, wemos d1 mini, ws2812
Leave a comment
Suspense Courtesy of Arduino, Mess of Wires
The ticking clock on the bomb is a Hollywood trope that simply refuses to die. Adding to the stress levels of the bomb squad and creating great suspense for the watcher, it’s always interesting to wonder why the average bomb maker is so courteous as to supply this information to law enforcement. Regardless, if you’d like to build a dramatic prop and are mature enough to do so responsibly, [Giorgio] has the guide you need.
The build is a straightforward one, relying on an Arduino to run the show. This is hooked up to a classic 7-segment LED display, upon …read more
Posted in alarm clock, arduino, bomb, clock, clock hacks, prop
Leave a comment
Decorative Light Box Lets You Guess The Time
Telling time by using the current position of the sun is nothing revolutionary — though it probably was quite the “life hack” back in ancient times, we can assume. On the other hand, showing time by using the current position of the sun is what inspired [Rich Nelson] to create the Day Cycle Clock, a color changing light box of the Philadelphia skyline, simulating a full day and night cycle in real time — servo-controlled sun and moon included.
At its core, the clock uses an Arduino with a real-time clock module, and the TimeLord library to determine the sunrise …read more
Posted in clock, clock hacks, light box, mechanical design, PCB design, rtc
Leave a comment
Clock Monitors Deep Space Network, Keeps Vigil Over Lost Mars Rover
It’s been a long, long time since we heard from Opportunity, the remarkable Mars rover that has shattered all expectations on endurance and productivity but has been silent since a planet-wide dust storm blotted out the Sun and left it starved for power. Right now, it’s perched on the edge of a crater on Mars, waiting for enough sunlight to charge its batteries so it can call home. All we can do is sit, and wait.
To pass the time until Opportunity stirs again, [G4lile0] built this Deep Space Network clock. Built around an ESP32 and a TFT display, …read more
Posted in clock hacks, Deep Space Network, DSN, ESP32, mars, MER-B, MRO, Opportunity, rover
Leave a comment
ESP8266 Clock Puts Time in a Jar
Ironically, with the wide availability of modular electronic components today, the hardest part of constructing your latest gadget might just end up being able to find a decent looking enclosure for it. Project boxes will only get you so far, and let’s be honest, they aren’t exactly the most attractive things in the world. But if you’re willing to think outside the box (get it?) there are some unconventional options out there that might fit the bill.
Take for example this ESP8266 clock by [ZaNgAbY] that’s housed in a glass pasta jar. With the addition of some window tint film …read more
Posted in clock hacks, DS3231, ESP8266, glass jar, led hacks, MAX7219, ntp, ticker
Leave a comment
Epic Clock Clocks The Unix Epoch
Admit it: when you first heard of the concept of the Unix Epoch, you sat down with a calculator to see when exactly 2³¹-1 seconds would be from midnight UTC on January 1, 1970. Personally, I did that math right around the time my company hired contractors to put “Y2K Suspect” stickers on every piece of equipment that looked like it might have a computer in it, so the fact that the big day would come sometime in 2038 was both comforting and terrifying.
[Forklift] is similarly entranced by the idea of the Unix Epoch and built a clock to …read more
Posted in clock, clock hacks, epoch, gps, ISO-8601, nmea, rtc, unix epoch
Leave a comment