Neo Steampunk Desk Clock

Steampunk because of the copper tubing.

Neo because of the modern Arduino.

Antisismic because of the springs holding the electronic pieces within the copper frame.

This was the fun part part of the project.

I never made copper tube welding before that.

• I tryied with my soldering iron : fail (not hot enough)
• I tryied with a lighter : 1 success, many fails (not hot enough)
• I bought a blowtorch at the DIY store : wow, works great

There are many videos on internet to teach how to weld.

The tricky part was welding the small rings in the corners.

I used a few powertools to make the retro design.

I included plastic inlays (1mm thick) for the backlight led strip.

Magnets are included in the box to stick the upper part without screws.

This project involves high voltage (for the lamp) and low voltage for the Arduino.

The lamp bulbs are 25 Watts (220V). I used a On/Off switch and an intensity variator. The high voltage circuit is separate from the low voltage circuit.

I salvaged a power supply a 7.5 V adaptor. With a 7805 circuit, I generated 5V to power the neopixel ledstrip.

The Arduino Nano is directly powered by the 7.5 V. The 5V pin from the Arduino powers the realtime clock and the Oled screen.

Three buttons are used for choosing the led mode and display mode, as well as the time setting menu.

I used three components :

• Arduino Nano
• DS3231 Real Time Clock
• 1 inch OLED screen

I tried to have minimum visible wires. 4 wires are leaving from the Arduino (3 for the buttons, 1 for the led strip).

It took me several weekends to make this project. It was great fun dealing with copper welding and designing the whole system. I like the global look of the lamp. It is not a full steampunk design though I think it is cool.

Hope you like it too and that it will inspire you.