[arduino] tick tock, it's a clock, not a pc!(on hold)

[Bsmith]

Simutaliens. You mean simultaneously.

Anyhow, that is quite a nice shot you got there.

 

hehe thanks for the compliment and finding the typo, since i moved from just laptop keyboards to a generic HP one my typing becaming worse, but that's an other story.

[Bsmith]

Final sketches! and order status.

 

 

So after some intensive drawing and thinking i have figured out how to make the clock exactly and got th sizes on paper.

 

final sketch for the number, scale 1:1 small lines indicate places to drill cable holes.

 

final figure with measurements, drawn 1:1.

 

 

In the maintime I also finished the second experiment of the included starter guide, this guide starts making use of the arduino IDE, opening up a whole new world pretty quickly since it introduced me into the timings and delays when working with multiple LED's.

project 2 of the arduino starting guide, spaceship interface.

 

With this in mind it directly sparked an idea, a dedicated pin for each number, after putting this down on paper I went on a e-shop hunt with the goal to find a dutch/belgium located e-tailer that is selling adafruit parts, luckily i found one already and there are a few parts on the way, including a RTC(DS1307) for better time measurment and a two types of neopixels to see which will be more suited for this project.

 

numbers with the amount of LED's required for each pin, with possible schematic lay out for the number 8.

 

The project is picking up some speed so expect more updates the next few weeks, hopefully i receive the parts i orderd this week.

Altough I tried to avoid anything that requires soldering it seems i can't get around it, but time will tell if it is really needed or not.

[TheOrdix]

Nice project, but it looks strange that the 9 isnt a mirrored 6 in your drawings

[Bsmith]

Nice project, but it looks strange that the 9 isnt a mirrored 6 in your drawings

 

thanks.

I know it looks weird, but for some reason it just doesn't feel natural that the 6 has a line less or the 9 a line more, it looks pretty weird i agree on that, but i feel fine with breaking the symmetry with those, i can change that later on if needed anyway.

[AHaskin14]

Awesome! Best of luck to you!

[Bsmith]

UPDATE, LEDs arrived!

 

So the LEDs arrived, got 2 types of them, single's and in 8 on a strip.

Both types allow me to control each LED on it's own from a single pin, meaning that i would be able to drive all LEDs through 4 pins, 1 for each number

LED bar, 8 LEDs on a single PCB.

 

single LED, same size LED but now 1 LED on the PCB.

 

after installing it the the breadboard it's time for some testing.

 

 

single LED ready for testing.

 

after powering it up.

 

owhh darn.. that thing is bright!!

 

let's see if the strip does better.

 

less bright, that's better, all are working but it's showing of it's possibilities right now.

 

based on the brightness i decided that the stick would be a better choice to use, altough that has other problems.

 

the stick appears to be wider then the design i had in mind.

 

So right now it's down to deciding how i continue, redesign everything to fit the bar or place a few of the smaller ones next to each other.

I guess i will make that decision when i got a piece of wood as test sample to see how the thickness is and how easy it is to work with.

 

 

 

 

[Bsmith]

a new day a new package

 

So after finding out the hardway that my uncle's soldering iron had tip that was to big and got to hot, I had to order my own soldering iron with a smaller tip.

 

the LED bar after the incident, pcb melted and got between the contact points and destroyed it.

 

 

 

the new soldering iron which has a much smaller tip.

 

Along with this update I made a small change to the topic's title, since I just noticed a small grammatical error.

The next update will be once I got around with soldering and am sure of the fact I can do it, still thinking of getting a desoldering pump though, since I might need it, but I don't know for sure right now.

[Guest]

you can get around not having a desodering iron, it just takes more time and effort.

 

That is a cool iron, where did you get it? How's the build quality?

[Bsmith]

you can get around not having a desodering iron, it just takes more time and effort.

 

That is a cool iron, where did you get it? How's the build quality?

 

Thanks for the tip, might look up a store selling one of these then.

 

It's a toolcraft JLS-03 soldering iron.

I bought it from Conrad, a German/Dutch e-tailer that sells nearly everything,got this for like €20,- can't complain about the quality for that price tbh.

if I could it would be the wire that won't flex easy and the screw that is near the tip incase you want to replace it.

the thing i really like about it is that you can set the temp from 200 up to 450 degrees Celsius depending on your material.

(stand not included)

[Guest]

I don't think I'll buy one yet as my current one has similar range of heat. 

 

A desoldering Iron is a  desoldering pump and a soldering iron built together and it makes it easier to remove solder, but I find I can do the same thing with a regular iron, some wet tissue paper/sponge and patience.

[Bsmith]

I don't think I'll buy one yet as my current one has similar range of heat. 

 

A desoldering Iron is a  desoldering pump and a soldering iron built together and it makes it easier to remove solder, but I find I can do the same thing with a regular iron, some wet tissue paper/sponge and patience.

 

going to look for just the pump, since the iron currently is fine and does the job, but it will take some practice anyway, knowing myself I get to quick into it and screw it up, something I'm trying to avoid with this project.

[Guest]

going to look for just the pump, since the iron currently is fine and does the job, but it will take some practice anyway, knowing myself I get to quick into it and screw it up, something I'm trying to avoid with this project.

I guess. Remember to keep the pump clean of solder or it might sop working.

 

You sound just like me, doing it too fast and breaking it.

[ELSknutson]

oooo someone learned how to use a 7 segment display

[Bsmith]

oooo someone learned how to use a 7 segment display

 

not really, this is my first experience with arduino, so alot of learning is involved for me.

the each segment of the display will be made out of 3-4 invidual LEDs, but that is still a work in progress since I need to see first what seems better or more natural, hopefully having a test piece of wood(or two) by the end of the week.

[SkywardKkalox]

not really, this is my first experience with arduino, so alot of learning is involved for me.

the each segment of the display will be made out of 3-4 invidual LEDs, but that is still a work in progress since I need to see first what seems better or more natural, hopefully having a test piece of wood(or two) by the end of the week.

Just a question, are you writing the code from scratch?

[Bsmith]

Just a question, are you writing the code from scratch?

 

Except for the piece of code that is made to let the LEDs run, yes I will be making it up from scratch.

[SkywardKkalox]

Except for the piece of code that is made to let the LEDs run, yes I will be making it up from scratch.

If possible, i'd like to see the code when it's done. Maybe I can link to my teacher to evaluate some stuff, he is really into Arduino, which he made a whole class for it.

[Bsmith]

If possible, i'd like to see the code when it's done. Maybe I can link to my teacher to evaluate some stuff, he is really into Arduino, which he made a whole class for it.

 

Sure, why not =P Altough it might take a while because I will be trying to have it as efficient as possible, which might be a pain in the digital ass, since I need to assign all numbers to the right LEDs, which takes quite some space since it are 28 segments spread across 4 pins.

 

But follow along in this journey of arduino and I will put it here eventually(if I don't forget it)

Might even reach a point where I would need to ask for help here(that would be shamefull)

[SkywardKkalox]

Sure, why not =P Altough it might take a while because I will be trying to have it as efficient as possible, which might be a pain in the digital ass, since I need to assign all numbers to the right LEDs, which takes quite some space since it are 28 segments spread across 4 pins.

 

But follow along in this journey of arduino and I will put it here eventually(if I don't forget it)

Might even reach a point where I would need to ask for help here(that would be shamefull)

Asking for help is never shameful! It makes you learn new things!

Never say that again please!

[Bsmith]

Asking for help is never shameful! It makes you learn new things!

Never say that again please!

 

school thought me the "you learn from mistakes" part instead of the asking part, but that's an other story

[SkywardKkalox]

school thought me the "you learn from mistakes" part instead of the asking part, but that's an other story

It's true that you learn from mistakes, but sometimes, help is needed aswell.

[Bsmith]

So today we ground to a halt...

 

My macbook suddenly decided that it's RAM wasnt functioning anymore, so it refuses to boot up.

This is quite a problem since it currently is my only mobile system with the IDE on it and allowed me to set up some space to work on the arduino, which my desktop doesnt allow me to do.

 

to the people wondering why on a mac and not a laptop with linux/windows, well mac was nearly plug and play, 3 step instruction(download IDE, plug in arduino, check setting Y) where windows had a 13 step guide, which included driver downloading and some other magic, and where Linux, well... let's say it is possible to use it but takes longer then windows to set up reading wise.

 

So yeah until I got my memory replaced all I can do is practice my soldering.

[Guest]

So today we ground to a halt...

 

My macbook suddenly decided that it's RAM wasnt functioning anymore, so it refuses to boot up.

This is quite a problem since it currently is my only mobile system with the IDE on it and allowed me to set up some space to work on the arduino, which my desktop doesnt allow me to do.

 

to the people wondering why on a mac and not a laptop with linux/windows, well mac was nearly plug and play, 3 step instruction(download IDE, plug in arduino, check setting Y) where windows had a 13 step guide, which included driver downloading and some other magic, and where Linux, well... let's say it is possible to use it but takes longer then windows to set up reading wise.

 

So yeah until I got my memory replaced all I can do is practice my soldering.

*ground to a halt

 

That sucks. I hope the ram doesn't take long to fix.

[Bsmith]

*ground to a halt

 

That sucks. I hope the ram doesn't take long to fix.

 

going to the store this weekend since they should be able to fix it on the spot.

It is that i was so stupid to pick up a vacation job for this week, otherwise it wouldnt be a real issue.

Also, if it wasn't my mac, I would do it myself, I prefer this to be handeld by people recognized to do it(and thus giving warranty when they fuck up) since I also need it for school.

 

tnx for the small grammatical correction by the way

[Bsmith]

(This post contains little to nothing of the ussual formating due to mobile use)

Hello guys,

With my macbook still being in repair and the school year already starting again this project will slow down even more then I hoped it would.

So incase anyone here besides me is anxious and hoping for lot's of updates and a reasonable quick round up, I'm sorry

(insert south park I'm sorry meme here)

I personally hope to be back on track again with this as soon as possible, altough that seems quite unlikely to happen.