Wise Clocks on the Make: Staff Pick List

Updated July 9/10
Not in the MakersMarket anymore. To be able to afford the fees, sales must be pretty consistent, which was not the case with the wise clocks, unfortunately.

It is nice to see that two of my Wise Clocks made it on the Make: staff pick list.
I offer them for sale, assembled and tested, in the MakersMarket store.

One could win one of the assembled Wise Clocks, or any other product in the MakersMarket store, by participating in their contest, see rules here.

The technically inclined could buy the kits at a fraction of those prices, and also learn and have fun in the process of assembling them.

Thank you, Make: staff.

Introducing DWex - Duino Watch for experimenters

This watch is built around a 3V-powered ATmega328P running at 8MHz.
Time is shown using 2 circles of 12 LEDs, in a manner similar to an analog watch (with hands). Minutes are indicated on the exterior circle of green LEDs; hours are indicated on the interior circle of red LEDs, as shown in this video.



To make the watch practical (that is, wearable), the battery life should be at least in the order of months. This can only be achieved by keeping the processor in sleep mode most of the time. At the push of a button the microcontroller becomes active and lights up the appropriate LEDs for 3-5 seconds; then it goes back to sleep.

The diameter of the board is 4.8mm (1 7/8 inches), determined mainly by the size of the coin batteries.
The thickness of the assembled board is 8mm (a little less than 3/8").

A DS1337 real time clock chip keeps the time. It was chosen over DS1307 because it has alarm capabilities. This allows the microcontroller to wake up on an interrupt when the alarm is triggered.

The watch is powered by two 3V coin batteries (CR2032) connected in parallel and mounted on the back of the board. Their total capacity is 450mAh (2 x 225mAh). They should last about 3 months of "normal" use (pressing the "display" button several times an hour) based on the sleep mode consumption of around 120microAmps and on the "active" consumption (LEDs on) of 12mA for 5 seconds at a time.

Most of the components are surface mounted. Both ICSP6 and FTDI connectors are on board. This would allow it to be used as a miniature Arduino (with on-board RTC ), for other-than-watch purposes.

Schematics and board layout are shown below (I will publish the Eagle files soon, after a thorough revision).

An original feature of the watch is the single push button used for both showing the time and setting up the time. Basically, the first button push will wake up the controller from the sleep mode and light up the appropriate LEDs. If the user presses the button for a longer period, the LEDs are activated in sequence, simulating the rotation of minutes and hour hands. When the desired time is reached, the user releases the button, thus setting a new time.

The source code can be downloaded here.

An interesting challenge will be to find (or design and make) a proper case. Ideally, it would resemble the black anodized machined aluminum case of the Nixie watch. (But then, the button should be replaced with a tilt switch as well.)

More details to come.

Related postings:

• Prototype of an Arduino Analog Clock
• Buy DWex
• Programming DWex
• Cases for Dwex

Wise Clock 2 now comes with ATmega644P programmed

Starting today, "Wise Clock 2 complete kit" has the ATmega644P microcontroller loaded with the latest version of the "Wise Clock 2" software (this is on top of the bootloader, of course). This means that after assembling it, there is no need for ATmega644P chip to be programmed anymore; this eliminates the need for FTDI cable, Arduino IDE, code download, compilation, upload, and greatly simplifies the construction of the clock. (Obviously, the software can be changed/upgraded any time through the FTDI connector).

Price for the kit remains the same, US$84, with free shipping (only to North America). Buy it here.

Related postings:

• Kits for sale

On Google Ads and other "ad revenue streams"

Updated Sep 7, 2010
Today I received an email from Makersmarket. They ceased operation. Their business model didn't work. I guess that the high monthly fees they charged made other sellers to pull out as well.


Updated July 9, 2010
The book promised by makersmarket never showed up. (I also closed my "store" on makersmarket because the fees were really eating the little revenue I made there.) Therefore, I took out their logo as well (shown below for "commemorative" purposes).

This has nothing to do with Arduino, but I thought it is still a piece of information (that others may find useful) and not just noise.
Out of curiosity, I signed up with Google Ads (aka AdSense) when I first developed this blog. I could have filled the screen with "AdSense gadgets" as they are called, by I chose the most modest of the advertisement modes, the one that displays a few line of ads between postings (plus one at the bottom of the page).

A year later, I made US$30. Well, I did not really cash it in, since Google sends out checks of a minimum US$100. So I will have to wait patiently (and write diligently) about 2 more years to see any money from Google ads.
Also worth mentioning is the number of hits ("page impressions") for the last year: 37K.

A little rough estimate of adafruit.com potential revenue from Google ads (if they would display Google ads) is somewhere around US$3,000 a year, which would be 100 times more than this blog (I remember them mentioning 1M pages served; that would be roughly 30 times more, which looks hugely underestimated). Again, $3,000 if the ads would be lightly displayed. Not bad, but not great either, considering they have sales in excess of US$1M a year.

On the same line (ads), also out of curiosity, I signed up with Amazon, although I did not start using their service yet. Expect some postings on books I read (or plan to) in the future, when I will find the time.

Thirdly, makersmarket, where I listed assembled wise clocks, offers a book (a value of $25) to the first 50 fellows who display their logo. Which is exactly what I did yesterday. This would be a much better ("efficient") deal than Google Ads, obviously.

And lastly, I got hooked up, also out of curiosity, with yet another "ad revenue stream", a business model developed by a friend who is trying to take over Google (I am kidding, evidently). The result is the "Rent this space" box on the right column.

Now you have all the explanations and excuses for all the ads you see on this blog. As they say, "don't blame the player, blame the game". Seriously, it is just a way to get a little understanding of what's going on.
I cannot resist to close with another saying: "if you are not outraged, you are not paying attention".

New version of Wiseduino

The new Wiseduino board offers several improvements (I would like to think) over the old one:

• prototyping area, with pads for an 8-pin SOIC chip; this part can be sawed off along the fine holes, to match the dimensions of a small shield (and of the previous version); the intention was for this piece to be broken off by hand, but the PCB is too thick to make this possible;
• two mounting holes for screws/standoffs;
• power (5V) provided through the FTDI connector as well;
• through-hole power switch.

The prototyping area can be used to add buttons, buzzer, LEDs, or even a voltage regulator.

Eagle files are available: schematic here, board here.

Related posts:

• Buy Wiseduino kit