Via Hackaday.io, Alex Padilla has built a cute free-form clock using Adafruit parts.
I was inspired by Mohit Bhoite’s electronic sculpture projects, particularly this one featuring a 7-segment display. I don’t have that caliber of soldering or programming skills, but Adafruit’s CircuitPython looked like a good way to quickly program a small project and the ItsyBitsy M0 Express had capacitive touch capability to easily provide inputs. I used the RTC+SD Featherwing as the middle layer between the ItsyBitsy and the 7-segment display because it has a double row of headers and the inner set of headers just happened to match the width of the headers on the ItsyBitsy M0. I made 1:1 scale drawings of the boards to plan the bends in the brass rods, and actually used the lines on the page to get the bends to the correct angle to hold up the 7-segment display.
The build came together almost exactly how I envisioned it. After I started testing the display I found that the LED segments were hard to see, so I put a sheet of dark acrylic in front to cut the glare.
The build used many Adafruit parts:
- 1×ItsyBitsy M0 Express https://www.adafruit.com/product/3727
- 1×Adalogger FeatherWing – RTC + SD https://www.adafruit.com/product/2922
- 1×Adafruit 4-Digit 7-Segment LED Matrix Display FeatherWing https://www.adafruit.com/product/3088
- 1×K&S Precision Metals 1/32″ OD Brass Rod https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001APJ0OG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- 1×Black LED Acrylic Sheet https://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plastic/black_led_sheet/668
See the video below for the clock in action and read more on Hackaday.io. Great build!