NeoPixel 60 Ring Wall Clock

Transcription

1 NeoPixel 60 Ring Wall Clock Created by Andy Doro Last updated on :10:07 PM EDT

2 Guide Contents Guide Contents Overview Building the Circuit Code Finishing it up Page 2 of 11

3 Overview This project uses the DS1307 Real Time Clock ( with an Arduino to display the time as a series of colored arcs. With the new NeoPixel 60 Ring ( we have a perfect display for presenting the time with RGB LEDs! Hours are represented by red, minutes by green, seconds by blue. The arcs overlap and the colors mix. Minutes and seconds are each represented by a single green or blue LED, respectively. In the 12 hour version, a single red LED represent 24 minutes. The image above represents 3:48. To build this project you will need: 4 x NeoPixel 1/4 60 Ring ( - so you can make a NeoPixel 60 Ring DS1307 Real Time Clock breakout board kit ( Arduino Uno ( or other Arduino compatible microcontroller such as the DC Boarduino ( Page 3 of 11

4 Adafruit Perma-Proto Half-sized Breadboard PCB ( If you are new to microcontrollers and Arduino, I would recommend starting out by building the circuit using the Arduino Uno and a breadboard. If you are more familiar with Arduino, you can use the DC Boarduino and perfboard to build a more permanent electronics project. You will need a USB/TTL Serial adapter to program the DC Boarduino. The programming header on the Boarduino is compatible with an FTDI Cable ( or our FTDI Friend ( Page 4 of 11

5 Building the Circuit Solder 4 pieces of the the NeoPixel 1/4 60 Ring together, connecting GND to GND, 5V to 5V and DIN to DOUT. Butt the ends together and use a small piece of stripped wire as a 'bridge' to give some mechanical support Leave one pair of DIN and DOUT disconnected- this will be where the NeoPixel strand begins and ends. The ring is very delicate! So please mount onto a backing or use care when moving around! Note that the diagram above depicts a NeoPixel Ring with 24 NeoPixels, but the same principal applies! NeoPixel Ring connects as follows: +5V 5V on Arduino (red wire) GND GND on Arduino (black wire) DIN Digital 6 on Arduino (blue wire) DS1307 connects as follows: Page 5 of 11

6 +5V 5V on Arduino (red wire) GND GND on Arduino (black wire) SDA Analog 4 on Arduino (green wire) SCL Analog 5 on Arduino (orange wire) Assemble the DS1307 breakout following these instructions ( If you are using the DC Boarduino, assemble the board following these instructions ( You can assemble the board on the half-sized breadboard perfboard. Page 6 of 11

7 Code Important note: when running this code, you should probably use an external power supply (say 9VDC into the Arduino). When I ran the code on USB power, the NeoPixels drew too much current and this caused the RTC to provide strange numbers to the Arduino. Download the code ( and uncompress in your Arduino sketch folder. This Arduino sketch relies on a few Arduino libraries: RTClib ( Adafruit_NeoPixel ( Follow the DS1307 RTC breakout tutorial ( to learn how to install the RTC library and set the time on the DS1307 RTC. You will also need to install the NeoPixel library ( See the following tutorial to learn how to install Arduino libraries ( /************************************************************************** * * * NeoPixel Ring Clock * * by Andy Doro (mail@andydoro.com) * * * * * ************************************************************************** * * * Revision History * * Date By What * AFD First draft */ // include the library code: #include <Wire.h> #include <RTClib.h> #include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h> // define pins #define NEOPIN 6 #define BRIGHTNESS 64 // set max brightness RTC_DS1307 RTC; // Establish clock object Page 7 of 11

8 RTC_DS1307 RTC; // Establish clock object DateTime Clock; // Holds current clock time Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(60, NEOPIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800); // strip object byte hourval, minuteval, secondval; // holds the time byte pixelcolorred, pixelcolorgreen, pixelcolorblue; // holds color values void setup () { Wire.begin(); // Begin I2C RTC.begin(); // begin clock //Serial.begin(9600); // set pinmodes pinmode(neopin, OUTPUT); if (! RTC.isrunning()) { Serial.println("RTC is NOT running!"); // following line sets the RTC to the date & time this sketch was compiled RTC.adjust(DateTime( DATE, TIME )); strip.begin(); //strip.show(); // Initialize all pixels to 'off' strip.setbrightness(brightness); // set brightness // startup sequence delay(500); colorwipe(strip.color(255, 0, 0), 20); // Red colorwipe(strip.color(0, 255, 0), 20); // Green colorwipe(strip.color(0, 0, 255), 20); // Blue delay(500); void loop () { char* colon = ":"; // static characters save a bit char* slash = "/"; // of memory // get time Clock = RTC.now(); // get the RTC time secondval = Clock.second(); // get seconds minuteval = Clock.minute(); // get minutes Page 8 of 11

9 minuteval = Clock.minute(); // get minutes hourval = Clock.hour(); // get hours if(hourval > 11) hourval -= 12; // This clock is 12 hour, if 13-23, convert to 0-11 hourval = (hourval*60 + minuteval) / 12; //each red dot represent 24 minutes. // arc mode for(uint8_t i=0; i<strip.numpixels(); i++) { if (i <= secondval) { pixelcolorblue = 255; else { pixelcolorblue = 0; if (i <= minuteval) { pixelcolorgreen = 255; else { pixelcolorgreen = 0; if (i <= hourval) { pixelcolorred = 255; else { pixelcolorred = 0; strip.setpixelcolor(i, strip.color(pixelcolorred, pixelcolorgreen, pixelcolorblue)); /* // for serial debugging Serial.print(hourval, DEC); Serial.print(':'); Serial.print(minuteval, DEC); Serial.print(':'); Serial.println(secondval, DEC); */ //display strip.show(); // wait delay(100); Page 9 of 11

10 delay(100); // Fill the dots one after the other with a color void colorwipe(uint32_t c, uint8_t wait) { for(uint16_t i=0; i<strip.numpixels(); i++) { strip.setpixelcolor(i, c); strip.show(); delay(wait); Page 10 of 11

11 Finishing it up You might want to put a heatsink on the voltage regulator- the NeoPixels use a lot of current, causing the voltage regulator to get hot! I used a spare circular piece of black plexi to hide the electronics behind, since I'm just hanging the clock near a desk. If you want to you can create a more sophisticated enclosure for this clock. Last Updated: :10:07 PM EDT Page 11 of 11