Ken Shirriff examines a 1980s chip used in a Soyuz space clock: The clock is built from TTL integrated circuits, a type of digital logic that was popular in the 1970s through the 1990s because it was reliable, inexpensive, and easy to use. (If you’ve done hobbyist digital electronics, you probably know the 7400-series of […]
Category Archives: clock
Rothko clock Nixie shield with 6 IN-17 tubes
Florinc writes: This Nixie shield was designed by Tyler around 2013, as an open source project. A little after the successful kickstarter campaign, it just disappeared. I was one of the backers and I received a couple of PCBs for my contribution. I used them to built clocks and I even wrote some review blog […]
Geiger counter Nixie clock
DIY Geiger counter Nixie clock @ medwaymakers.com: Continuing my love of vintage and interesting items, I came across a non-working DP-66 Polish Geiger counter from 1971, which I set out to re-purpose as a Nixie tube clock.
Tutorial: Maximum clock Frequency for Kinetis using MCUXpresso clock tools
Erich Styger writes, “This tutorial is about how to use the NXP MCUXpresso Clock configuration and configure the board to the maximum clock frequency of 120 MHz. The same steps apply to many other boards, including the FRDM-K22F one. The tinyK22 has the K22FN512 ARM Cortex-M4F on it which runs up to 120 MHz. It […]
PoE-Powered VFD tube clock
Glen Akins’ PoE-powered vintage VFD tube clock: This is a vintage VFD tube clock that uses Ethernet for both power and data. The power is provided using 802.3at PoE+ and a Molex PD Jack that contains both integrated magnetics and a PoE Type 2 PD controller. The IP stack runs on a Microchip PIC18F67J60 microcontroller […]
Inside the digital clock from a Soyuz spacecraft
Ken Shirriff has written an article on reverse engineering a “Onboard space clock” from a Soyuz mission: We recently obtained a clock that flew on a Soyuz space mission.1 The clock, manufactured in 1984, contains over 100 integrated circuits on ten circuit boards. Why is the clock so complicated? In this blog post, I examine […]
DIY ‘Meta Clock’ with 24 Analog clocks
Erich Styger blogged about his ‘meta clock’ built with 24 individual analog clocks, controlled by a network of LPC microcontrollers.” For a detailed description see MCU on Eclipse blog.
Simple NTP clock using USB display module
Dilshan Jayakody writes: Simple NTP clock is a maintenance-free clock application developed to work on single-board computers like Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, etc. This clock application uses the Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) to get the time and display it on seven segment display which I designed. This application is designed to work on most of […]
Simple digital clock with PIC16F628A and DS1307 and 7-segment LED display
A simple digital clock with PIC16F628A + DS1307: In this new project I am again using PIC16F628A microcontroller. The goal is simple digital clock with 7-segment LED display and the clock will have no additional functionality – no alarm, no seconds digits, no date. The latter can be added in the software though. For the […]
WiFiChron alarm clock
Here’s a cool WiFiChron clock with 8-character alphanumeric LED display by Florinc: For WiFiChron, two cascaded modules make an 8-character display functionally similar to HDSP-2534, but bigger and more visible. With the “Display Abstraction Layer” already in place, software support should be easy to integrate, since controlling it with the HT16K33 breakout allows the re-use of […]
Neopixel clock, v2
David Zweben published a project writeup showing how he built a Neopixel clock powered by an Arduino Pro Mini clone and a real time clock module: After building my first Neopixel Clock, I decided I needed one for myself. There was no way I was going to solder 90 lengths of wire onto 180 tiny […]
ETA Nixie tube clock
Mark Smith over at surfncircuits has a nice write-up about building an ETA Nixie Tube Clock: This DIY project will combine the estimated time of arrival function with a Nixie tube display to create an estimated time of arrival (ETA) Nixie tube clock. It is all easily controlled by a Raspberry Pi Zero W that […]
Akafugu modular VFD clock review
Manuel Azevedo did a review of Akafugu’s modular VFD clock: I discovered this wonderful tiny VFD clock by chance, while browsing Tindie for novelties. As I’m a newcomer to this Nixie/VFD world, I was not aware that Brian Stuckey already did an article in 2014 on a previous incarnation of this clock (Akafugu Modular VFD […]
Single tube Lethal Nixie clock
Andrew Moser made a lethal nixie tube clock: Clock 1: Single tube Lethal Nixie clock — you know having all the high voltage lines exposed and un-insulated. Inspiration for this design was from this clock. Unfortunately I built mine right after having surgery. I think the painkillers had something to do with the aesthetics… Anyhow […]
Adjusting clock with alarm, hygrometer & thermometer on 1.8″ ST7735 display
Nicu Florica blogged about his adjusting clock with alarm, hygrometer and thermometer on 1.8″ ST7735 display: I use feature from article Another adjusting clock with alarm & thermometer using DS3231 on 1.8″ ST7735 display and change reading internal temperature of DS3231 with DHT22 senzor (AM2302), but you can use a cheaper and not very precise DHT11 […]
Yet another Arduino clock
Sverre Holm blogged about his Arduino clock project: Its main features are: Controlled by a GPS module outputting data over an RS232 serial interface, and handled with the TinyGPS++ library Shows raw GPS data such as UTC time and date, position, altitude, and number of satellitess Shows derived GPS data such as 6-digit locator Finds local […]
Binary clock
Frederick Vandenbosch made a binary clock with Raspberry Pi Zero and Unicorn pHAT. He documented the whole process on his blog: At the center of the project are a PiZero and a Unicorn pHAT. The PiZero fetches the time, converts it to binary and controls the Unicorn pHAT with a Python script. The Unicorn pHAT’s […]
Linux alarm clock
Benoit Frigon wrote an article detailing his alarm clock running Linux project, that is available on github: This is the display i made for my alarm clock project. The first version was a 24×7 LED matrix but later changed the design for a four digits seven segment display. I decided to keep the drawings for […]
MSP430 VFD clock – Manhattan style
Daniel has a nice write-up about building his Manhattan style VFD Clock based on the MSP430G2553 microcontroller and the MAX6921: I know that and IV-18 based clock isn’t anything original. In fact, Adafruit used to sell a kit for this exact purpose. I don’t really care that it’s not original, because all vacuum tubes are […]
T-baneklokke – coundown clock
Joakim made a coundown clock for his wife and documented the whole process on his blog: The clock is built using an Arduino, and has a battery powered real time clock to remember the time while powered off. To make it truly stand alone I added the possibility to set the time and time-to-leave using buttons. The […]