These are fantastic! They are truly works of art. Love the "art deco" theme of the table clock. May I ask a technical question? I see that for both clocks you seem to have segments consisting of 3, 4 or 5 LEDs. I was curious if you wired them in series or in parallel. If series, then I assume 12v power supply?
Thanks, I'm a big fan of Art Deco myself. The one you're referring to was a Seth Thomas mantle clock in it's previous life. I bought it on eBay as an empty wood case. My Grandpa had one just like it and that's what I had in mind when I chose it. I even took it to his house and posed the two clocks next to each other for a photo shoot! Great question about the LEDs, they are wired in parallel in both clocks for the exact reason you mentioned, I don't want the voltages stacking up. I've read it's a "no-no" to wire LEDs in parallel but I've gotten away with it for a long time now. The pendulum clock has two power supplies: 5V for the digital chips and 3.3V for the coils that drive the pendulum. I chose a lower voltage for the coils because I drive a lot of current through them and wanted to keep power consumption lower. The "watch movement" art deco clock has a 9V power supply because it's needed for the main clock IC (MM5402N). It has a 7805 voltage regulator to reduce the 9V down to 5V for the rest of the digital chips. In both clocks the LEDs run off the 5V rail and are switched with transistors and current limiting resistors. Pretty basic actually. BTW if you wanna see a clock I'm a big fan of... check this out: ruclips.net/video/X_s9EVEBLEU/видео.htmlfeature=shared
@@danebeck7900 The Rambler clock is neat, I love the mix of technologies, thanks for the link. Nice story about the twin clocks! I absolutely love your clocks, they have a great aesthetic to them and they are truly works of art. You really deserve far more views. Your clocks have inspired me to do something similiar (but due to lack of time, it will have to wait until I retire next year). I asked about the LEDs because if in parallel, I wondered about having so many current limiting resistors, but you seem to be OK without them. I'm sure it helps that they are all identical. BTW, are they diffuse LEDs by any chance? (not that it makes much difference since viewing is typically "head on" for a clock, just curious as they are commonly used in LED "sculptures" for improved visibility at a variety of angles). See the work of Alain Le Boucher to see what I mean. It's good that you have the two systems on different supplies. I imagine you used a snubber diode and some filter caps. Not sure about the purpose of the chunky resistor though. For the pendulum clock, I was wondering how you decoded the outputs. If the mod 12 counters are BCD, then you could use a 4 to 16 demux (not so readily available), but then the outputs would be active low which means the diode "ORing" for the hour hand logic would be cumbersome due to the inversion. Yesterday evening, I prototyped a mod 12 counter that uses a pair of readily available CD4017's (you have to chain them in a special way using an AND gate in order to obtain 1 of 12 decoded outputs). That approach results in only a 2 chip solution per mod 12 counter (no IC required for the AND gate glue logic since I implemented the AND gate with diodes). Timebase excluded, I think the remainder of the clock could consist of only 9 ICs. 1 CD4040 or CD4020 for the mod 300 counter, 4 CD4017s for the two mod 12 counters, and 4 ULN2803's for the LED hour and minute hands. Thank you for your nice response!
These are fantastic! They are truly works of art. Love the "art deco" theme of the table clock. May I ask a technical question? I see that for both clocks you seem to have segments consisting of 3, 4 or 5 LEDs. I was curious if you wired them in series or in parallel. If series, then I assume 12v power supply?
Thanks, I'm a big fan of Art Deco myself. The one you're referring to was a Seth Thomas mantle clock in it's previous life. I bought it on eBay as an empty wood case. My Grandpa had one just like it and that's what I had in mind when I chose it. I even took it to his house and posed the two clocks next to each other for a photo shoot!
Great question about the LEDs, they are wired in parallel in both clocks for the exact reason you mentioned, I don't want the voltages stacking up. I've read it's a "no-no" to wire LEDs in parallel but I've gotten away with it for a long time now.
The pendulum clock has two power supplies: 5V for the digital chips and 3.3V for the coils that drive the pendulum. I chose a lower voltage for the coils because I drive a lot of current through them and wanted to keep power consumption lower. The "watch movement" art deco clock has a 9V power supply because it's needed for the main clock IC (MM5402N). It has a 7805 voltage regulator to reduce the 9V down to 5V for the rest of the digital chips. In both clocks the LEDs run off the 5V rail and are switched with transistors and current limiting resistors. Pretty basic actually.
BTW if you wanna see a clock I'm a big fan of... check this out:
ruclips.net/video/X_s9EVEBLEU/видео.htmlfeature=shared
@@danebeck7900 The Rambler clock is neat, I love the mix of technologies, thanks for the link. Nice story about the twin clocks!
I absolutely love your clocks, they have a great aesthetic to them and they are truly works of art. You really deserve far more views. Your clocks have inspired me to do something similiar (but due to lack of time, it will have to wait until I retire next year). I asked about the LEDs because if in parallel, I wondered about having so many current limiting resistors, but you seem to be OK without them. I'm sure it helps that they are all identical. BTW, are they diffuse LEDs by any chance? (not that it makes much difference since viewing is typically "head on" for a clock, just curious as they are commonly used in LED "sculptures" for improved visibility at a variety of angles). See the work of Alain Le Boucher to see what I mean.
It's good that you have the two systems on different supplies. I imagine you used a snubber diode and some filter caps. Not sure about the purpose of the chunky resistor though.
For the pendulum clock, I was wondering how you decoded the outputs. If the mod 12 counters are BCD, then you could use a 4 to 16 demux (not so readily available), but then the outputs would be active low which means the diode "ORing" for the hour hand logic would be cumbersome due to the inversion. Yesterday evening, I prototyped a mod 12 counter that uses a pair of readily available CD4017's (you have to chain them in a special way using an AND gate in order to obtain 1 of 12 decoded outputs). That approach results in only a 2 chip solution per mod 12 counter (no IC required for the AND gate glue logic since I implemented the AND gate with diodes). Timebase excluded, I think the remainder of the clock could consist of only 9 ICs. 1 CD4040 or CD4020 for the mod 300 counter, 4 CD4017s for the two mod 12 counters, and 4 ULN2803's for the LED hour and minute hands. Thank you for your nice response!