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[quote][i]Originally posted by ed[/i] Been working on this little project for a while now and made a bit of progress tonight. Thought I'd share it on here :) The idea is, you have a lightbox which contains partitions which are individually illuminated by LED arrays on self adhesive PCBs. There is a stencil on the top of lightbox which has words cut out and when the LEDs illuminate correctly the time is told using words. A complicated solution to a simple problem, telling the time. The idea came from Instructables and the board is powered by Arduino which is an open source electronics prototyping platform. Arduino is really useful because you simply code in C and there is lots of info online to get you going. PCB material was cut to size: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438280117/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7150/6438280117_2a16ed3db7_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438280117/]Cut PCB[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr PCB negative was printed onto tracing paper and then a lightbox was used to expose the photo resist on the PCB ready for developing: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438280843/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7174/6438280843_08bb0b860f_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438280843/]PCB In Lightbox[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr Once the photoresist was developed (no photo), the PCB's were etched in acid: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438281535/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7172/6438281535_c07565c811_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438281535/]PCB's Being Etched[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr Etched PCB's: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438282273/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7169/6438282273_f1f313b465_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438282273/]Completed PCB's[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr A populated PCB - it took an age to drill all the holes! Soldering wasn't too bad though as I used sockets for all the IC's to protect them from my unskilled hands! [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438283037/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7011/6438283037_14001e3720_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438283037/]Populated PCB[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438284065/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7143/6438284065_cab77bea1a_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438284065/]PCB Underside[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr I used a USB to TTL Serial thingie to program the Arduino - the board was designed so that the processor could be programmed without removing it: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438284733/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7024/6438284733_68ba76ce64_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438284733/]USB to Serial Programmer[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr Programming the board: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438285537/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7008/6438285537_8e54961f34_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438285537/]Programming the Arduino[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr Applied power to the board and everything worked! Green LED means power, the red LED flashes during boot up and the flashes every second thereafter - I think I might need to replace the LED resistors as they are a bit bright: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438286425/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7156/6438286425_4140c473b4_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438286425/]It Works![/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr Used a laser cutter to cut out the plastic components of the clock. I designed it in Solidworks and created vector graphics at 1:1 scale to send to the laser: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438287109/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7144/6438287109_ccca68fb99_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438287109/]Laser Cutting the Lightbox[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438287867/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7168/6438287867_da791cc79f_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438287867/]Laser Cutting Complete[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr Did a dry assemble of the lightbox with all the partitions in it. I noticed that I'd messed up the tolerances on the slots that are used to fit the thing together with, so the joints were all a bit loose :facepalm:: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438288511/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7160/6438288511_f4d540ceca_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438288511/]Dry Assembly of Lightbox[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr I packed the joints out with masking tape and everything fitted together without falling to bits! [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438289229/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7002/6438289229_df8babff54_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438289229/]Lightbox All Assembled[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr Then I had to apply vinyl stencil to the clear acrylic front - never done this before, no idea if I did it right but it all worked with no bubbles, tears or missing bits: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438289927/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7147/6438289927_f1096510c2_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438289927/]Stencil and Acrylic Front[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr I pulled the whole backing off and applied soapy water to it so the stencil could slide about when aligning the acrylic front - apparently this is the noob way: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438290637/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7146/6438290637_ab20bb54e1_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438290637/]The Stencil Ready to be Applied to Front[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr Seemed to come out nicely: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438292005/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7148/6438292005_ed98d88b71_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438292005/]Masking Tape Removed[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr I then applied an opaque filter to the back of the assembled stencil - it's not quite opaque enough for my liking so I need to apply another layer. I used my laptop as a backlight to try and see what it would look like fully assembled: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438292713/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7012/6438292713_f5e2916dcc_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438292713/]Diffuser Applied - Using Laptop as a Backlight[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr I then fitted the stencil assembly to the lightbox assembly to see what the letters would look like when they wren't illuminated. I want them to be a little bit 'whiter' hence applying another layer of filter to the back of it: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438293473/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7022/6438293473_605afcd63f_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/edjcs/6438293473/]Stencil Fitted to Lightbox[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/edjcs/]edcs[/url], on Flickr So, all I have to do now is apply the LED PCB's and wire them up! That's going to be quite tricky as there will be quite a few wires involved with that... :wave: [/quote]
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