How it came about

This clock started when I was given a few 2″ high LEDs. I decided to make a two digit clock and it struck me that I should be able to piggy back the displays onto a pcb of the same size. So it was that I devised a layout, etched and drilled it, programmed up a PIC and it worked.

I mounted one display upside down so that I could use the two decimal points together as a flashing colon.

There the project remained without a case until I was sent a few small sheets of a rather curious material. It has embossed lines at 45º, like those lenticular pictures that change when you move your view. I started to experiment with this material and found that when I put it over the LED clock I got a choice of two effects, vertically the material made two slanted copies appear, horizontally I appeared to have one elongated image hovering above the display and a compressed version below it. This really gives a strange floating effect to the display. And so my final clock took advantage of this latter effect.

Above: the lined screen placed vertically and horizontally gives different effects.

All that remained was to make a case for the assembly out of 3mm acrylic sheet, which I sprayed matt black.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Matt Miranda

    Hi,
    That is a very nice project! I am particularly interested in how you achieved the floating effect. Could you give me some more information about the material sheet you used?
    Thank you.
    Matt

    1. clock-it

      The material was sent to me by a friend and I have no idea what it is called or where to buy it. Maybe it is a version of lenticular sheet.

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