Hi, I'm Marcos Leguizamon, from Argentina, and I'm 30 and a self taught programmer since I was 12, and recently I entered in the electronic world, in the same way.

The last year, to do my first proyect, I choose to make a Clock build with leds (look at the picture atached) commanded by a 16F84. It shows the time of the day, day of the week (in spanish DO, lu , ma, mi ,ju , vi, sa) and day of the month (I found it useless to show the year, and also I was sick of soldering leds)

I made all the design, from the firmware (assembler), to the electronic circuit, the fonts (it uses 5x7 digits, fully controlled, not 7 segments-like) and the wooden box to hold it (this last one was really hard!!)

The thing is, now I want to release something made by me in the net, with source code , schematics, instructions,... and this is by far the best thing I made, It's hang in the kitchen since more than a year and working perfectry, and it's usefull. (I also made some comercial firmware, but that's out of the question)

Until here everything is allright, but, this are my questions:
Does anybody want to solder (4+2)*(5*7)+2*(6*5)+3=237 leds, and also made 474 holes in a PCB to hold them?
Do you thing it's usefull or are there proyects like this in the net, better done?
It's aceptable to power it from a 9V DC, or should it be 220V/110V AC? Don't ever think about batterys
Can I publish just the electronic thing, and left the wood stuff out of the proyect? Would anybody hang a PCB in the wall without a box?

Sorry for the size of the mail, and of course, for my bad English.

MARCOS

 

I don't see any reason not to put it out onto the internet. I say go for it.

hgmjr

 

Nice project, Marcosj. It's pretty impressive to get all that stuff working. You could certainly post it in out Projects Collection, if you like.

Questions:
1. No, thanks. If you find this has enough interest, check up on a CAD program to make a printed circuit board. Just as many holes, but it can cut down on the number of wires to solder.
2. Good hobby project. I sporadically work on a Nixie tube clock. They are nicer than LED's (just my opinion).
3. A 9 volt battery would last about 2 minutes with all those LED's. Use a wall transformer.
4. Yes, let people decide how or if to house it. Not your problem.

Your English is quite acceptable. Lots better than my Spanish.

 

Thanks for the answers. Yea, I think I can post it, but I still have some doubts:

* If I made the board with leds, it must be double sided to make a matrix, or you must put an absourd quantity of wire bridges to make the columns (or rows). But it's practical for the target people who can make it, to make a double sided PCB? I design and printed a couple of them in my home, and it's much more difficult, because you must make it match the two sides. The question is: it's a common practice there (in the first wolrd ) to send a hobby PCB like this to print in an specialiced place? Are people who make it for a free dollars there? Of people make it on their homes?

* Would it be better to make it with prebuilt led matrix modules, those of 5*7. Of course it would make the PCB o lot easier, but are then common enought?

All this things are because before post it winth a PCB, I must make one miseft. The one I made and I'm using was made with perfboard and a lot of wirewrap, so I must test a new desing, because it would be bad to post a design I don't realy know if it's working. And I prefer not to use led matrix modules because are expensive here, but I don't want to lose time designing something nobody can build.

MARCOS

 

The first question is hard to answer. Many people have access to a CAD program to do a PCB layout. So you could post the schematic and let anybody wanting to build the clock figure out how to put it together.

For myself, I think it's more fun to make up the LED matrix.

Perfobard and wirewrap is a good way to do the LED's, but only if you have the equipment. You might still give the wiring route as a separate file.