What's going on Gadget Officer today?

Hello everyone! Gadget Officer is back again..and its been a while since my last post about the Nokia phone hack..its not that I have stopped all my Arduino project and all..just a lot of commitment to my day job and most importantly, to my family :-) ...

So..what's going on Gadget Officer (GO) today?

Not much to write in this post except to update my on-going project I've been working on for a couple of month now. But before that, let's take a look the picture below:

Yep. 

A digital clock with solah prayer time display.


I believe many of you who live in Malaysia used to see this in the mosque or the one this one selling in frame shop at Tesco or Giant etc. The price tag is actually not very expensive nowdays. You can get one like this for only around RM 3xx (small size).


And then...I kept thinking...and think...and think...

..why not I just build one of this clock (all with the prayer time and date) using those cool red 7-segment led display and for sure, will be controlled by my-super-awesome Arduino chip...

Hmmm...a good idea...but...

I know its gonna be challenging project to make and lots of work involved..but thats what I love doing electronics...the challenge :-) thats what keep me doing what I love to do.


So...the next whole week,this is the project that keep playing in my head. I have the whole idea on how to build it and how the electronics would work but I know that I need to keep it simple. I don't want to do 'rocket-science' just for a digital clock (many of them on the net) so I've done some research through the internet and looking for parts from ebay.

To visualized my idea into real form, I use Solidworks to draw the clock design based on actual parts that I already have in stock and dimension references from the internet. It took me about 2 weeks to complete the cad drawing. So...this is it.. The initial design:

The wood frame actually was taken from my old picture frame and since the size is quiet big, I could place in all the display that I need..which is the clock (big one at the top), date and all the prayer time..

This is another image that shows the display board arrangement from the controller board at the top to the prayer time at the bottom..

By drawing this 3D CAD design, it will be my good reference for the PCB dimensions and the display placement. It also helps me to look for better solution for the problem and to imagine how the final work would be.

Alright guys, thats all I can share with you for this moment. This is still on-going project and still lots of work need to be done. Currently I'm really busy working on the PCB design and fabricating the boards.

I will update my progress for this project in a while after this. So keep posted!


Until next time..happy gadgeting to all Arduino-nian! :-)