After my company transitioned everything to an open office with unassigned seating the personality of customized desks was lost. Anything, and everything, we had out on our desk for the day needed to be stored back in our locker as we left as we might not have the same desk the next day. I wanted to personalize my area a bit and build a clock that can be easily setup and taken down. While thinking through and sketching designs I halfway inadvertently made a mini model of the TV Stand I previously built.
The build process was split into the woodworking and the electronics portion. I first started with the electronics so I knew what the final size of my project would be. I picked the Adafruit 7-Segment Display in Yellow as my display, an RTC(to keep accurate time with a battery backup), and a microcontroller for reading the time value and driving the display. All three of these devices connect together on the I2C bus, allowing for just a few wires between them and no need for a circuit board. Using some code I sourced online with libraries from Adafruit I built a simple program for the clock. A single line from the program can be uncommented to update the RTC’s stored time with the time from the computer compiling the code. Future enhancements to this project can use a GPS module to automatically update the time for time zones or daylight savings.
With the electronics done I can build the housing for them. Using scrap pieces I formed the main box with small legs on the bottom to mimic the TV stand. A small insert for the front of the box was cut out to hold the display in it and the back was left open for power and access. The box was painted white and the small insert stained cherry.
