Buy Wiseduino kit

Update July 5, 2015
A redesigned wsduino is now available.

Updated Apr 24, 2012
This kit is now DISCONTINUED.

Updated Dec 5, 2010
I am currently shipping the latest revision of Wiseduino, which is 1.7.
Wiseduino+, a similar board but featuring DS3231 (extremely accurate real time clock) is also available, check it out here.


Updated Aug 1, 2010
I still have this kit for sale, with a newer, improved, board.

I have a few Wiseduino kits for sale, for US$34 each, free regular shipping in North America (add US$4 for any other destination in the world).

The Wiseduino kit includes the following components:

• Wiseduino PCB;
• ATmega328P programmed with the bootloader;
• 28 pin socket for ATmega328P;
• resonator 16MHz;
• 24LC256 EEPROM, in either DIP or SOIC package (depending on the availability);
• DS1307 real time clock, in either DIP or SOIC package (depending on the availability);
• crystal 32,768 Hz;
• coin battery holder;
• 3V coin battery (CR1220 or compatible);
• 4 x 10K resistor;
• 4 x 100nF capacitor;
• 40 pin female header;
• 10 pin female header;
• SPDT micro switch;
• either molex 2-pin angled power connector or JST jack;
• power cable, with battery connector at one end and female 2-pin plug at the other end;
• 6 pin male angled header.

(Missing from the photo are the battery clip+ wire, the micro switch and the CR1220 battery.)

Assembling instructions can be found here.

Wise Clock sketches, formatted and commented, are published here (coming soon).

This is an Wiseduino assembled on a test PCB (green).

The release version is black.

Related posts:

• Assembling Wiseduino
• Introducing Wiseduino

The shoppe

Here are a few original kits you can buy from us. They are all open source, with schematics, board layout and software freely available.

Wise Clock 4 complete kit - US$125 US$115, free shipping to North America
Has support for wireless devices with an XBee footprint (XBee, Bluetooth, WiFi etc).
Includes everything needed to build the clock in the left photo except the SD card and USB cable (ask if you need those).

Wise Clock 4 kit - US$67 US$57, free shipping to North America

Includes the PCB and all parts to build the board in the left photo.

HDSP-2534 clock kit - US$40, free shipping to North America

Includes the PCB and all electronic components to build the clock in the photo. The phone dock/cradle is not included.

ProMini bubble clock shield - US$18, free shipping to North America

This kit includes mostly SMD parts to build the ProMini clock shield in the photo. Use your own ProMini.

ProMini OLED clock shield - US$30, free shipping to North America

This kit includes the parts, some SMD, some through-hole, to build the OLED clock shield shown in the left photo. Use your own ProMini.

WiFiChron alarm clock kit - US$47 w/o case /$61 with case

Make a desktop/nightstand alarm clock with WiFi capabilities.
Could be customized (through adapters) for other types of similar displays.

6-character alphanumeric Arduino shield kit - US$26 (free shipping to North America)

Quickly and easily add alphanumeric display capabilities to your Arduino projects.

wsduino - Arduino-compatible with on-board RTC and XBee support - US$27 (free shipping to North America)

Make a clock with no extra shields.






More stuff:

• Freebees

• Bi-color LED mini-display shield - Arduino 2009/Uno form factor

• Dual bi-color LED matrix shield kit - as used in IllyClock

• DWex - Arduino-based pocket/wrist watch board, assembled and programmed

The following have been discontinued and are no longer available. I may still have one or two laying around, so please ask if you really need any.

• Wiseduino+ kit - Arduino-compatible featuring extremely accurate real time clock DS3231 - 

• Wiseduino kit - Arduino clone with real time clock and EEPROM onboard, used in glass-domed WiseClock 

• Duino644 kit - as seen on youtube

• Wise Clock 2 assembled, tested and ready to use - includes SD card with the right files, power adapter and  USB (power) cable 

• Wise Clock 2 complete kit - includes Duino644, display and enclosure

• Wise Clock complete kit - as seen on youtube (includes glass dome)

• LED matrix shield kit - as used in the glass-domed WiseClock

Buy Wise Clock kit

Updated May 14, 2011
This kit is DISCONTINUED due to the availability (and affordability) of glass domes. You can still build this project if you provide your own 4" (height ) x 3" (width) glass dome (found on ebay). To complete the WiseClock, you will need the Wiseduino kit and the LED matrix shield kit.



Wise Clock kit, ready to be assembled; requires soldering, of course.

 (US$79, free shipping in North America)

 (US$83, free shipping outside North America)

The Wise Clock kit consists of:

• the Wiseduino kit plus
• the LED matrix shield kit plus
• the glass dome case.

Broken down to the components, this is what you get:

• Wiseduino PCB;
• ATmega328P programmed with the bootloader;
• 28 pin socket for ATmega328P;
• resonator 16MHz;
• 24LC256 EEPROM, in either DIP or SOIC package (depending on the availability);
• DS1307 real time clock, in either DIP or SOIC package (depending on the availability);
• crystal 32,768 Hz;
• coin battery holder;
• 3V coin battery (CR1220 or compatible);
• 4 x 10K resistor;
• 4 x 100nF capacitor;
• 40 pin female header;
• 10 pin female header;
• SPDT micro switch;
• either molex 2-pin angled power connector or JST jack;
• 6 pin male angled header;
• Wise Clock LED matrix shield PCB;
• 8x8 bi-color (red + green) LED matrix;
• 2 x 74HC595 shift registers with 16 pin sockets ;
• ULN2803A with 18 pin socket;
• 16 x 100 ohm resistor;
• 2 x micro push button;
• resistor 220 ohm;
• resistor 10K;
• 2 x 100nF capacitor;
• 40 pin female header;
• 40 pin male header;
• IR receiver;
• battery holder for 4 AA rechargeable batteries;
• battery connector + cable;
• molex 2-pin female connector;
• glass dome case.

Assembling instructions for the Wiseduino kit can be found here and for the LED matrix shield kit here.

Source code (sketch) can be downloaded here.

Brief comparison between SD card shields

Before I started the Wise4Sure project, which uses SD card, I did some research on a few SD card shields available commercially. This post is a summary of my findings.

I looked at three SD card shields: one from Libelium (US$28), one from Seeedstudio (US$15) and Wave shield from Adafruit (US$22, although this is more than an SD card shield).

The similarities are:

• all SD cards require 3.3V;
• all connect to the SPI port (pins 10-13);
• they all need a voltage divider (2 resistors x 3 signals) to adapt between the 5V level from Arduino and 3.3V level of the SD card;

These are the particularities:

• Libelium's small form factor shield comes assembled (SMD components) and tested, and includes a microSD card. It offers the nice feature of plugging the shield to either pins 8-13 (power is extracted from pin 8, set as high) or to the ICSP connector. It is not stackable (no more shields on top of it). It makes its own 3.3V from an onboard regulator.
• Seeedstudio's also small form factor comes assembled and tested. It accepts both SD and microSD, manually selectable through a switch. 3.3V comes from Arduino. It is also not stackable.
• Adafruit's Wave shield is a full size shield, designed to play wave files from the SD card. It comes as a kit, with through-hole components and clear assembling instructions. It has a powerful (100mA) 3.3V regulator on board and it is stackable. After interfacing with Wave shield, only pins 6 to 9 are left available for other use.

In my pre-prototype of Wise4Sure I used the Wave shield, since it was the only SD card shield I had. The integration went seemlessly, everything worked from the start.

When 2K is not enough

Good thing I started Wise4Sure as a "pre-prototype" (proof-of-concept). Imagine the frustration of things working weirdly with a prototype board, parts soldered maybe not perfectly, wires over wires, solder bridges and many other potential hardware issues. Then realize that the problems are really in the software, where 2KB of RAM is not enough, due to the SD card library (SHuFAT), which itself uses a half KB buffer to read a sector (see this post).

Based on the newly acquired facts, I decided that the prototype will use an ATmega644, the core of the sanguino. Here are a few technical specs:

• 4KB static RAM (that's the main reason I chose it);
• 64KB flash memory;
• 2KB EEPROM;
• completely through-hole.

Not many stores sell the sanguinos, nor the ATmega644, especially with the bootloader. I ordered mine from wulfden.org.

I already started building the board, and one of the first observations is that the distance between the two connectors (2x8-pin) on the back of the 0832 display module from Sure is not multiple of 0.1", as I expected. So my plan to use the connectors as plug-ins the "mother-board" is half ruined. I may need to use only one connector, which would confer less mechanical sturdiness, or have the "mother-board" un-attached mechanically, but connected through the short parallel cable that comes with the display. Both suck.

Related posts:

• Wise4Sure