TimeAssistant
The Time Assistant is your best assistant when it comes to your working hours. I am a mechatronics student and I work at the university. When I started my job, I wrote down my working hours on a pad. After a while I noticed that this pad is getting confusing and at least it is difficult to count the hours together. So a solution had to be found. I created the TimeAssistant. This small device fits in any pocket and can therefore be taken anywhere at work. When you start your work in the morning, all you have to do is press a button and the TimeAssistant also starts working next to you. At the end of your work you push the button again and the device stops working. That is all you have to do. The TimeAssistant does all the further calculations and documentation of your working hours. Check out the video for a full overview.
Components
To build your TimeAssistant you need:
- some Wood
- ESP8266 WIFI KIT 8 (Version A)
-LiPo Batterie 350mAh
-RTC DS3231
-10k Resistor
-blue mini LED
-2x mini Buttons
-mini Switch
-SD card 2GB
-SD card holder
-some Wires
Note! Make sure ESP8266 WIFI KIT 8 is Version A! Version B has other connector pins.
Circuit Diagramm
Note: The SD card adapter is connected with the board via SPI. Unsolder the adapter from the shield to save space. The connecting pins are listet in the Circuit Diagramm.
The Mode Button is directly soldered on the board and the Start Button is connected via a thin insulated wire.
The RTC DS3231 uses the same I2C connection as the OLED Display. Pullup the SQW pin via a 10k Resistor and connect it to the analog input of the board. The SQW pin is set to 1 Hz. This is necessarry to update the shown time every second on the display. The only solution to get the SQW pin successfully was to use the analog input. I tryed to use other digital pins but with no success.
The blue Led is also directly soldered on the GND next to the charging Led and also connected via a thin insulated wire to the GPIO 1.
Design and Assembly
Feel free to design your TimeAssistant. My solution is shown in the pictures.
Outlook and Further Information
I also wrote an WPF App to be able to display the working hours precisely. The App is shown in the picture and and when it is finished I will upload it. I could imagine to make the connection from the ESP8266 to the Computer via the WLAN interface.
The calculations only work with the data formatting as shown in the text file!
In the future i will improve the code and the construction plan. If you need help or there are problems or i have forgotten something please comment.
Sry there is something wrong with the date.txt . The formatting of the text file should look like this:
It's always from: to:
03.12.2019-13:15
03.12.2019-19:00
04.12.2019-09:00
04.12.2019-12:00
04.12.2019-13:00
04.12.2019-16:00
05.12.2019-09:00
05.12.2019-11:45
Would be very nice to see somebody will build it. Have fun wih your TimeAssistant :)