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43oh

just wanted to show off my latest clock :)


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Ok... so compared to some of the projects I see on here, I feel like amateur hour at the Apollo, but.... Here goes:

 

I love building clocks, but I have no use for time itself. So a long time ago, I thought of doing this project. It wasn't until I fell in love with the MSP430 that I dusted it off and got to it. I call this piece "Beyond Time & Space."  It is 12"x24" and every bit is custom built and hand painted.

 

I would love to be able to post this to Etsy or something and sell a few, but with what I have in this, both in materials and time, I'd have to charge close to $600 for it and I doubt anyone would be willing to pay that :D

 

I need to get better pictures of the actual finished product, but I enjoy it and I hope you guys do, too!

 

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You could add illumination below the moon and sun to indicate nighttime and daytime. Or even fancier: light them at sunrise and moonrise, you could even do the moon segmented and show the current phase of the moon on it.

There is a little tool on some unix systems called "pom", which stand for phase of moon. You could use the code in that to calculate these things.

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You could add illumination below the moon and sun to indicate nighttime and daytime. Or even fancier: light them at sunrise and moonrise, you could even do the moon segmented and show the current phase of the moon on it.

There is a little tool on some unix systems called "pom", which stand for phase of moon. You could use the code in that to calculate these things.

 

Oh man... it's so cool that you said that! That actually was in my original design plans (lighting the sun or moon to show AM or PM) but since the plastic sheet is blue, I was afraid the the sun might shine green if I tried to illuminate it! I may try that later though.

 

I also thought about adding stars using fiber optics. My projects are never finished so... :)

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Nice design and execution.

 

I notice there is a coin cell, and what looks like an external power connector.

Am I right in assuming that the MSP430 is powered via the coin cell when the external power is cut to maintain time. and the LEDs only run off external power?

 

Than you :)

 

And yes... when the external power is cut, the coin cell takes over and the MSP ceases updating the display, while still maintaining the current time. So far, it seems to be working pretty well :)

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