LAST UPDATE: 2019-Nov-03 - See latest update below.

Be aware: This is a work in progress. There might be heavy changes on the design in the future, as well a prolongued "sleeping times" (as I have several other projects in parallel). This is my first project using Fusion 360. Seems I started in the wrong face, so you need to turn 90° over the x-axes to print.

Story: I did play around with ws2812b LED pixel strips some years ago, starting to build a clock like this. First design was using a 30 led/m strip and was build from 5mm foam which is commonly used for rc airplanes. Diameter of the led ring was about 64cm, overall diameter was 75cm (outer and 53cm inner as there was some free space in the center). I gave up the project after my dog ate all of the three RTC modules I ordered from china and since then it is lost in the basement.

Some time ago a friend of mine who is running a facebook group rabout electronics in general reminded me on the project and I went back to it. As the WAF (women acceptance factor) of the big clock was very small (as you can imagine) I decided to do a smaller version using 2m of a 60 led/m strip. Diameter ( the strip is 100cm in circle so its 159*2mm diameter ) is aprox. 42 cm because of the space for the seperators, Finished product also needs some space around when mounted on the wall.

This is splitted in 36° parts, so you will need to print 10 pcs of one of the lower ring parts, either for ordinary led strip (7mm gap) or led strip with additional lense (which I personally prefer) (9mm gap). Lenses for 5050 leds can be found starting from 1 usd/50pcs from china. Also you will need 10 pcs of the lid. If your printer is precise there is no need to file down the connectors. I just put the parts upside down and used a small hammer to bring them together.

The software is (actually) a piece of scrap. It works, so don't worry ;) I started on the "colorpalette" example coming with the fastLED library and added serial command support for setting the real time clock and also changing mode (show clock face 1 / face 2 / color fading). This needs some "cleanup" before I will put this online. Ideas are wellcome, if you like to participate let me know. Maybe you find something similar online. Always interrested, please post in comments.

More information (including the lid) coming soon. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions on the design.

Cheers Sascha

Update (2019-Nov-10) I changed clockface (1) to a more "analogish" one with the "hour pointer" moving like known behaviour from a typicall wall clock and moved the old clockfaces starting from mode 5... also, i experimented with diffrent "clock faces" using leds showin every hour/every two hours/ 3 6 9 12 o'clock but for me this seems to be a little bit of an overdose with all those leds lit. Less is more (at least imo).Maybe i make this configurable at some point in the future. Start brightness changed from 100 to 250 (nearly full), I am actually planning to add a LDR (light dependend resistir) in order to change the intensity depending on the room illumination, which imo will lead to a much better experience during the the whole day. A sleep mode with very low intensity during the night would also be a nice to have.

Update (2019-Nov-03) After a long sleep and the clock laying around on the top of a shelf in my shack I thought it would be a good idea to put it on a place on a wall in the living room next to the 16x16 dot LED display I built almost a decade ago. Putting it on I found an issue with display when 0/12 o'clock. So i fixed this. I also changed the code for the power on led self test and added a command "c" to repeat the test later on. With the clock on the wall I found it hard to read the time in mode 2 with all the inner led's lit "per minutes", so I guess I will change the software or perhaps the hardware later on for a much better experience. I also plan to add a bluetooth module in order to change the clockfaces from my mobile phone. I already got the module (thanks to Steven) some time ago. Building a mobile phone (android) app for this is an obstacle for me, so if someone with experience in doing this likes to pop into the project let me know.

UPDATE (2018-Oct-17): Updated the lid with a rev 3 as the mechanical performance was poor. Fits much better now. Make sure to print the smaller perimeters with no infill, they tend to break, especially when you try to get the lid back of.

UPDATE (2018-Oct-16): Uploaded a video of the finished clock except the lids. Wiring was a bit tricky but worked in the end. Find the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V7lweXs5NU I tidied up the software a bit, in order to be ready for some bigger changes. Split in parts regarding function for better clarity is the biggest change. I never was deep into coding on arduino, just did some "quick and dirty" solutions here and there when needed, so please forgive me the mess.

Future addons planned :

• additional clockfaces
• configurable colour/brightness for h/m/s
• save configuration to eeprom

UPDATE (2018-Oct-15): Uploaded a modified (rev3) 9mm lens gap part adding some space/holes for wiring. You may want to print 10 times rev3 instead of x1 rev3 / 9x rev2. Will also save some filament. Leave me a comment if there is someone who needs the 7mm led gap version with this modification. I also completed the "ring" so I thought I uploaded a picture of either the "whole thing" and the modified part. I have to change the wiring on my strip, as it's difficult to put it in. Stay tuned for first pics of the working clock (unfortunately still waiting for the lenses).

UPDATE (2018-Oct-14):

1. Software I added the arduino code to the thingy. There will be some bigger updates in the future. The code isn't nice but it works. I will put it in the github later on.

The code uses

• fastLED library you can find on http://http://fastled.io/
• time library you can find some information here: https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_Time.html
• RTC library - for information go to https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_DS1307RTC.html and
• serial command library by scogswell you find here: https://github.com/scogswell/ArduinoSerialCommand

2. Added lid with led separator as STL to the thingy. I just finished this a minute ago and have not printed it yet, so I can't say anything how it performs mechanically. Will check this tomorrow.