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Final Code Features!

A project log for GPS Clock

My entry to the circuit sculpture contest - A digital Clock which pulls its time from the Global Positioning System

matthew-james-bellafaireMatthew James Bellafaire 09/03/2020 at 03:070 Comments

I put the finishing touches on the project today, with classes starting soon I don't really want to drag this project into the school year when I've got other's like the smartwatch still going. I'm going to split up the final updates into code and changes to the sculpture. For anyone interested the code is available on this project page for download, everything's done in the Arduino IDE. 

The code's simple overall and I explained everything important about how the time is obtained from the GPS module, this code is all about ascetics and ease of use. 

The LEDs now operate as intended and transition smoothly in a fade sequence, nothing too crazy but it's a nice affect when looking at the clock.

I also finally got around to adding the photo resistor into the circuit right between the ESP32 and the GPS module. Which the firmware reads and automatically adjusts the brightness of the display and LEDs. This just prevents the clock from flooding the room with red light when there aren't any lights on in the room.

The final addition to the code was to do with timekeeping, the clock should now automatically adjust to daylights savings on its own. Since the GPS module automatically obtains date information anyway it's just a matter of taking that date and determining whether it's in a specific range. It's worth noting though that I only implemented this feature with the dates for 2020 daylights savings, so in the future it will have a few days where the time is wrong but ultimately 99% accuracy is good enough here. 

That's everything in terms of software features, onto the final touches to the sculpture. 

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