PC/electronics help needed

[Daniel J Beardsall]

Greetings all.

Assume for a moment that I have no knowledge of electronics (not true,
but I only know what I've picked up and that's rather patchy). I'm
looking to make a little addon for my PC and I need a little help. I'm
after making 3 time/date displays using 7-segment (numbers) and
10-segment (letters) LED displays. One of them should actually show the
correct time, the others I'd like to show other static times, preferably
with the option to change them occasionally. The latter parts should be
within my reach but the actual clock is a bit more of a problem, our
school was a bit crap and didn't actually teach us how to do that.

I'd rather make it from scratch but I'll butcher an alarm clock if I
have to.

The other thing is that it needs to be powered from the PC's power
supply, so it'll need to run on either 5V or 12V, with some form of
battery backup to power just the real clock when the machine is switched
off. If somehow it could be made to display the system's internal time
that would be wonderful, but not necessary.

Any help at all would be vastly appreciated.

DjBx

 

[Tom Woodrow]

if you want to power it from the PC use a USB port and interface. Get a
USB to DIO board from DLP Design or a USB I/O 24 from www.saelig.com

Tom Woodrow

 

[Rich Webb]

Greetings all.

Assume for a moment that I have no knowledge of electronics (not true,
but I only know what I've picked up and that's rather patchy). I'm
looking to make a little addon for my PC and I need a little help. I'm
after making 3 time/date displays using 7-segment (numbers) and
10-segment (letters) LED displays. One of them should actually show the
correct time, the others I'd like to show other static times, preferably
with the option to change them occasionally. The latter parts should be
within my reach but the actual clock is a bit more of a problem, our
school was a bit crap and didn't actually teach us how to do that.

I'd rather make it from scratch but I'll butcher an alarm clock if I
have to.

The other thing is that it needs to be powered from the PC's power
supply, so it'll need to run on either 5V or 12V, with some form of
battery backup to power just the real clock when the machine is switched
off. If somehow it could be made to display the system's internal time
that would be wonderful, but not necessary.

Clock kits are fairly widely available: www.ramseyelectronics.com for
examples of kits or www.hanssummers.com/electronics/clocks/matrix/ for a
schematic. Google for "LED clock schematic" or similar.

It's such a wide open question, though, that there are many, many
possible solutions.

Maxim has quite a few clock chips that support battery backup. You'll
need to interface them to the display, somehow. A microcontroller is one
way to do that, as is discrete logic or a gate array.

www.maxim-ic.com/products/timers/real_time_clocks.cfm

 

[Daniel J Beardsall]

Clock kits are fairly widely available: www.ramseyelectronics.com for

examples of kits or www.hanssummers.com/electronics/clocks/matrix/ for a
schematic. Google for "LED clock schematic" or similar.

It's such a wide open question, though, that there are many, many
possible solutions.

Maxim has quite a few clock chips that support battery backup. You'll
need to interface them to the display, somehow. A microcontroller is one
way to do that, as is discrete logic or a gate array.

www.maxim-ic.com/products/timers/real_time_clocks.cfm

Thanks for the help. I already Googled as much as I could before posting
this, and everything I found was either not what I was looking for or
over my head. The only suitable clock kit I found on the Ramsey site you
gave me only has HH:MM, it's essential the clock I make has MMM-DD-YY
HH:MM, with the time in 24hr and the 3 month digits as letters. Sorry to
be picky. The other site you mentioned, the schematic, I could probably
do but again doesn't meet the requirements.

But thankyou still. Back to Google I go...

DjBx

 

[Laurence Taylor]

Thanks for the help. I already Googled as much as I could before posting
this, and everything I found was either not what I was looking for or
over my head. The only suitable clock kit I found on the Ramsey site you
gave me only has HH:MM, it's essential the clock I make has MMM-DD-YY
HH:MM, with the time in 24hr and the 3 month digits as letters. Sorry to
be picky. The other site you mentioned, the schematic, I could probably
do but again doesn't meet the requirements.

Have you tried a radio-controlled unit? All the data you want is
available, all you have to do it display it. (Maplin used to do them,
don't know if they still do). Or buy a ready-made clock and pull the
display out.

--

rgds
LAurence

....The enemy's gate is "down"