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• Hardware test build

  Paul Schmitz • 07/23/2017 at 16:08 • 0 comments

  For testing, I'm using an Arduino Nano clone as a microcontroller.

  As it is easier to see the individual colors, I used individual LEDs for red, green and blue. They are connected from three digital Pins on the Arduino (D5, D6 and D7) and a resistor network of 680 Ohms, which connects to ground (GND on the Arduino).

  The LEDs (from China) I use don't need very high current to light up, but they have different brightness at around same current. That could be fixable by using different resistor values, or using PWM.
  

  I also wrote a simple code to test if everything works. It lights up the LEDs one at a time. (I'm using the Arduino IDE):

  void setup(){
    pinMode(5,OUTPUT);
    pinMode(6,OUTPUT);
    pinMode(7,OUTPUT);
  }
  void loop(){
    digitalWrite(5,HIGH);
    digitalWrite(6,LOW);
    digitalWrite(7,LOW);
    delay(1000);
    digitalWrite(5,LOW);
    digitalWrite(6,HIGH);
    digitalWrite(7,LOW);
    delay(1000);
    digitalWrite(5,LOW);
    digitalWrite(6,LOW);
    digitalWrite(7,HIGH);
    delay(1000);
  }

  
  

• First thoughts

  Paul Schmitz • 06/12/2017 at 12:51 • 0 comments

  There are two things to think about in this project: Hardware and Software.

  The hardware is simple in this case: One RGB-LED or three individual LEDs in three different colors are connected to resistors and a microcontroller (ATTiny?) on analog output.

  The important thing on software-side is representing the time on the LED in a format humans can read with easy explanations. Following are my first notices about this.

  - There are 12 different hours to display. Assign each one a color. As each LED can be controlled in brightness, it should be easy to find 12 distinguishable colors.
  - There are 60 minutes in a hour. Every LED can blink in 4 different patterns, which means 4*4*4=64 different blink combinations. One LED counts quarter hours, and the other two represent a number of minutes in that quarter.
  

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