Supersize LED/Analog Clock With a Twist.

I've seen a few of these LED style Round/ ring clocks on Youtube etc, you know the ones, a ring of LED's which has the coloured LED's which resemble the hour, minutes and seconds, corresponding to the correct time etc.

I was thinking of a design as I've always wanted to build one, but a design with a twist! I would like it be different to the other clocks I've seen.

With the grey matter on overtime I finally came up with a plan, I would not only make the clock an LED Ring clock, I would also make it Analogue in 2 ways, the first way would be to have a standard clock dial with the digits cut out as with a standard analogue clock dial, in theory the LED's should light up the corresponding time digits with the seconds counting around the perimeter, the 2nd analogue part would be installing a quartz movement.

LED ring clocks have the seconds counting by continuously so the design would need 60 holes, and also some way of isolating the LED's to stop spillage.

We would need to make provision for both the Quartz movement and the Electronics.

Its going to be a big clock as the LED's I have left over from previous word clock projects are 60 LEDS per mtr but should space out reasonably well.

Arduino based LED's will be controlled by a Wemos D1 and it will be NTP time, no messing when it comes to daylight saving time etc(UK here)

For the clock dial and body I have some MDF off-cuts 6 and 15mm

CNC operations:

When working with MDF or with any wood, it is crucial to wear a dust mask rated for that purpose.

Eye protection

Ear defenders

WS2812B Addressable LED strip 60 LED's per mtr

Wemos D1 mini

MDF 6mm for the face and 15mm for the body

Quartz clock movement

Medium Grit Sand paper

Blackboard paint

CNC Machine

3mm and 6mm Standard 2 flute up-cut flat bottom Router bits.

Bearing in mind that we need a circumference of 318.5mm to accommodate the LED's around the circle or face the clock face needs to be big enough for the digits to be lit up with the corresponding time.

A diameter of 430mm was decided upon and with a depth of 6mm our set up for the dial is decided, our starting point will be from the centre of the material.

We need to import a standard clock dial into our design, create a trace bitmap and delete the background, then highlight, combine and size to our 430mm clock face.

For the second holes create one hole @ 5mm and use the circular array tab and create another 59 around the perimeter.

Text, choose a stencil font for the clock digits and once happy with the size create digits using the bitmap for guidance, I did this for all 12 digits and then deleted the original bitmap leaving us with the stencil digits.

Create an 8mm hole in the centre of the piece, this is for the shaft of the quartz movement.

In the cutting section of Vetric, use the pocket tab for the digits and centre hole, depth is 6.3mm to cut right through the MDF, 3mm flat bottom 2 up cut router bit

Cutting out the clock face we select the profile tab, depth is 6.2mm using the same bit lets us create a toolpath for both operations, select the Tab option and create tabs to hold in place.

Rename, and save the g.code and cut out on the cnc machine.

Lightly sand the piece to remove tabs etc,

I painted the dial with blackboard paint using a small foam roller.

Onto the clock body.

Clock body design:

The clock body needs to have a 318.5mm diameter inner circle, this will accommodate the LED strip, then we need a pocket of approx 50mm for digit illumination, this leaves a lip of 5mm around the perimeter of the clock body.

Set up will be for 15mm MDF and dimensions for the piece of MDF I am using is 500mm x 500mm

Starting point will be the centre of the MDF.

Create a circle @ 318.5mm and another circle in the centre @ 8mm then then another circle @ 430mm offset this to 6mm inwards to create a band.

To the cutting section: for the recess around the circle this needs to be @ 11mm the width of the LED strip, so a pocket is created as in the photo.

The bit is a 6mm 2 flute flat bottomed router bit.

We now create a profile cut using the same bit, we can cut the 8mm centre hole out and also cut the clock body out, add tabs, this will create tabs around the 8mm hole to, just delete these.

We now move to the back of the clock base to cut pockets out for the quartz clock and the Wemos D1

For the clock movement a centre rectangle is created at 60mm x 60mm depth 11mm and a radius applied to each corner @ 10mm this pocket ensures that the clock spline will protrude enough through the clock face to attach the nut and washer to secure, 6mm Router bit

The recess for the WemosD1 doesn't need to be too big, I made it 60mm x 40mm Depth 10mm a bit generous I think, but it will have a 3D printed cover and not seen, 6mm Router bit, I did separate g codes for these and started off in the centre of the base for the movement and marked out a starting point below this for the Wemos.

I Painted the back of the body with blackboard board and left to dry.

Onto the LED's

LED's are Installed in the 3 o clock position, a small hole needs to be drilled through at the cable entry point allowing cable access to the rear of the base, they come with adhesive backing, remove the tape and install.

Solder cables to the Wemos D1

5v from the Wemos to 5v on the LED strip

Ground from the Wemos to Ground on the LED strip

D6 on the Wemos to Data on the LED strip.

I acquired the code from Leon Van Den Beukel's ring clock on Youtube a big thanks to Leon for an excellent project and Tutorial

https://github.com/leonvandenbeukel/Round-LED-Cloc...

The Quart clock mechanism is straight forward to install, just follow the instruction on the package

As with any new design there is always something that could have been carried out better with hindsight of course.

When it came to powering up the LED's there was a lot of obvious wash from the second continuous LED's so I got round this by making some small plywood strips to use as channels/filters, and placed them either side of the LED's apart from the sides of the numerical digits, these I left open and I quite like the look of it when it lights up the digits as the time goes by, I also fitted diffusers behind the clock face digits, this was just an A4 self adhesive sheet cut and placed on each digit and the second display holes to stop the LED glare, not perfect but it works ok

If I'd thought about it sooner I could have incorporated the channels filters into the design.

To Summarise:

Overall I'm really pleased how the clock turned out, its different which is what I wanted initially, it combines both elements of LED's and Analogue which is what I wanted.

It was made mostly from materials I had lying around apart from the Quartz Movement which was a few £/$

Hope you enjoyed this Instructable, if you make one, good luck with it, and lastly, thanks for looking.

See you in the next one!