I'm currently working on an open source Arduino powered RGB LED clock that will have a total of 180 LEDS on it. I've been working on this for a better part of the year and finally have my first prototype done. And YES those are over 250 surface mount componants that were hand soldered.
I'm thinking that in quantity I'll be able to sell these at a reasonable price, about $85 USD, for the populated board (Machine stuffed and soldered of course ;)) and about $150 for in a wood frame and $200 in a billet aluminum. I'm thinking about releasing this on kickstarter soon. What's everyone think so far.
I don't have all of the coding done on it yet and I only have the one prototype built so far but I have been lighting them up in some neat patterns
I know the pictures really don't do it justice. I'll try and get some videos up on Youtube over the weekend. Let me know what you think.
You'll be able to program the clock to display any way that you like. You can have each row be sec min or hour or make it look like the hands of the clock by lighting up a row of the three in any color you want. Me and the other guy I'm working on this with are going to be writing some
routines this weekend.
Looks interesting, although I wouldn't be interested in an assembled version (electronics part). As long as there aren't any BGA packages on there, I want to do my own soldering. Getting a nice frame would be nice though
Ha no BGAs don't think I could have hand soldered all that, I think there will be a PCB and components package available. Would you prefer just the PCB and a BOM, just the PCB and the LEDs or a PCB and all the components? We're getting really excited about this I think it's really something cool that we could play with.
Ha yeah sourcing parts is always the issue that's why we need the volume to get the price down. As for the powere supply a standard 7V or 9V will be fine. I'm glad we have some interest, can't wait to put some videos up for you to see it in action.
Hey Guys. I just launched the Kickstarter page to sell some preorders of the clock an incredibly reduced price. just go to Kickstarter.com and search for clockOS to find the project.
Think- We're using shift register to multiplex all "540" LEDs it's really pretty awesome that we can pull it off!
Based on the Arduino Pro mini platform, any programmer can write programs to control each LED individually. Want the clock to sync to your computer for the most accurate time? Want the clock to change color as the day progresses? Would you like it to be a 24 hr clock? How about a clock that counts backwards? How about sound?(Westminister chimes would be a pretty neat addition). You can program all these things using the Arduino development software. An Atmel micro along with a PIC25K22 processor controls all the clock functions. The ClockOS even has ISP ports on board to reprogram the bootloaders or directly load your hex files. You are also going to love the built in hardware expansion ports that let you connect to all types of external sensors. (This unit has all the capabilities of a Arduino Pro board) A temperature module? Humidity Sensor? Light Sensor? Servo Motors? Speakers? The sky and your imagination are the only limits you have with this Arduino based system.
