FiBi - Fibonacci Clock

Here’s my latest Arduino project, it’s called FiBi. It’s a Fibonacci based numbered clock with a little help from a RGB LED to know what the given Fibonacci numbers are indicating... hours, tens of minutes or minutes.

The parts used are commonly available. Arduino Nano, LEDs, resistors, mounting hardware, case, and perf boards.

The DS3231 clock module is not pictured with the rest of the parts but you can see it dangling on the left hand side of the inside view picture above.

It is really up to personal preference.

I have always loved clocks. Lately I have been playing with RGB readout clocks as you can see from the picture above. There are three variations at present.

The red color LED indicates hours, green color LED indicates tens of minutes, and blue color LED indicates minutes. They worked well but you have to count flashes of each color to get the “time” count. A quicker flash of a color indicates the “zero number” on the clock. They are more just visual candy and devices to change your focus / attention to help alleviate stress.

I’ve always wanted to make a Fibonacci series clock and thought it might be a good idea to incorporate my LED clocks as part of it, hence the idea. So you now have a clock that is definitely “eye candy”, with multiple variations of display since there are 30 combinations involved making up all the combinations of the numbers 1 thru 12.

The good thing is that “reading” the complete time on FiBi takes about 5 seconds each time you do it no matter the time. Whereas my RGB clocks are fast to “read” at 1 o’clock (about 2 seconds), but painfully slow to “read” at 12:59 ( about 15 seconds).

Above are a couple of pictures of the side and inside view of FiBi .

You’ll notice the second board under the top board and the top cover. That is the resistor board where each LED has a resistor attached to keep all LED intensities at about the same level.

The box I built it in is 2.375" x 3.25" x 1.28" so there was not a lot of room inside to play with.

As for building the project, of course you can use any set up you like. I used a very small box to challenge myself. Using bigger LEDs and wiring in the current dropping resisters differently into a bigger case will, of course, make it easier.

These are the resistor values and the digital pins that I used on my LEDs. I had to really play around with them. Setting the LEDS up like in a row on a breadboard, even just 2 or 3 at a time, makes things easier to see as you change the value of the resistors going to the individual anode leads on the LEDs. Remember these values worked for me but may not for you depending on the parts you put together and how you want it to look.

Small LEDs

White LED D5 25k ohms

White LED D6 25k ohms

Red LED D7 10k ohms

Green LED D8 35k ohms

Blue LED D9 10k ohms

RGB LED

Red D10 5k ohms

Green D11 15K ohms

Blue D12 5k ohms

AM/ PM Led

Yellow D4 20 k ohms (I kept the LED to less than half intensity ... looked better to me)

So Cathode ends of all LEDs go to Ground and the Anodes with the individual resistors go to the digital pins indicated.

The other connections and wiring are in the notes in the FiBi.ino file attached as well as the above info.

The 5 LEDS have a numbered value total of twelve as seen by counting the layout above.

If none of the LEDs are lit you have a value of zero and if all the LEDs are lit you have a value of twelve.

The program code is not elegant by any means. It is a kludge. I built the clock in three stages. When each stage worked properly, I moved on to the next. Then I “piggy-backed” everything together and got it working. It does work and I am pleased with the appearance and operation.

I hope you enjoy it for what it is. Thanks.