I have great news today! Xronos Clock has been selected to be at New York's Maker Fair this year! Please come and see us at New York Hall of Science in Queens September 21st-22nd (Saturday-Sunday). We will have exhibit where you can see Xronos Clock in action and take a peek at other things like Mega Clock, Audio Guide and more! We'll also have several clocks for sale at a discounted price including DIY Kits!
100+ brand new Xronos 2.1 red PCBs arrived today!!! I was surprised to see color was actually more orange than red, but I like it even more! :) Immediately I fired up my soldering iron and assembled one board. In the process I beat my own soldering record, I did whole thing in about 45 minutes, that's including RFM12B receiver! :) Everything check out good! I will have these bare PCBs in my shop soon if anyone interested. Kit is also will be coming. Now waiting for new laser cut enclosures to arrive and then I'll have more clocks in stock!
After yesterday's post, I found bunch of bugs that went unnoticed at first. These have been fixed, and I'm ready to share this code with the world. Best part, I tested this with V1 of Xronos clock and it works! As long as RFM12B part is disabled of course :) Very happy about this, and I'm officially abandoning V1 branch of the code, you will not see any more updates there. Here's the Arduino sketch. Don't forget you'll need some modified libraries which are available on the Support page. On a side note. I got GitHub account and was hoping to host my code there, but either I'm dumb, or GitHub is something I thought it was not, but I could not figure out how to upload source files there :(
Small update today. I rewrote big chunks of code, fixing lots of bugs and improving menu system. Here's short list of changes: - Fixed Talking Menu (completely rewrote it actually)- Moved User selection of which items to announce to separate submenu - Added submenu items to toggle which options will scroll in InfoDisplay (i.e. you can show only date and temperature, or just temperature outside) - Fixed RF indicator code, now dot will stay RED if no data received in over 5 minutes. On hardware front, V 2.1 of enclosure (3 prototypes) are being laser cut and I should get it within a week or 2. I also modified code for Moteino based temperature transmitter to use LowPower library (it will sleep for 5 minutes between temperature updates) and changed power source to 2 AA batteries. Will keep measuring power output to see how long batteries will last. Also I ordered big batch of Red PCBs (V2.1) which I plan to include in the kit or sell separately if anyone interested :)
I came back from vacation last week, and have been busy getting V2 ready for prime-time. I got new version of enclosure parts and they work. So since I had enough parts for to make 2 clocks and people were asking I've listed them on Etsy! After those two there will be a few week delay as I prepare, and send new templates for laser cutting. I'm planning to make some modifications to the clock enclosure design, specifically eliminate external aluminum tubing which is huge pain in arse to polish (takes me an hour to make them). This will also pave way to me finally being able to offer a DIY kit! Speaking of designs, I've been tinkering with faceplate and came up with this black and white one (I call it Hi-Tek Black), which I personally think loos amazing! Maybe I just got sick of looking faux-aluminum one on my bedside table, but I hope people will dig it. I have no way of knowing tho, unless you tell me! Let me know in the comments if you are interested in this faceplate. And here's a picture of it (this is my "prototype" clock that I wake up to every day, so it doesn't look exactly like production model). Now the last bit news of the day is that I'm working on my own Web Store. Etsy is great and all, but very limited (i.e. I can't offer add-ons, etc.). It's coming alone fine, and should be online soon!
Wow that was fast. Just as I posted my last updated, someone got last clock off my Etsy store! That's all folks, see you in 2 weeks!
I know I said before that I have last clock left before long vacation, however 2 good things happened. First LED displays arrived a lot sooner than expected! And second I though I was out of V1 PCBs, but I found one laying on my desk among the mess :) So I can still make one more clock if you order before this Saturday!
Wow what a week! Since my clock was featured on several gadget sites, I sold out all my current stock of Xronos V1.0. There's just enough parts left to build one last clock, until next batch arrives, so if you really want to get one next week hurry up to my Etsy store! :) Also I'm going for a vacation and will be back around 3rd week in June. Sadly I probably won't have much access to the internet, so I might not be able to answer support questions immediately. So around 3rd week in June is when I'll should get enough parts for second batch of Xronos clocks! These will be based on V 2.0 PCB, but might not have all the functionality of V2 implemented right away (such as RF receiver). Such functionality will require a processor upgrade to ATMega1284p. However if you are handy with soldering you'll be able to upgrade new version of the clock easily (just buy and solder RFM12B transceiver and swap ATMega644p for ATMega1284p). Radio support will be provided as firmware upgrade patch.
Lot of small updates today. I was finally able to finish writing User Manual. It's work in progress so I will try to keep it updated as soon as possible. On related note I've created "easy" firmware uploaded script. It will upload latest hex image of Xronos clock provided that you have FTDI interface and computer running Windows. It relies on AVRDude utility (which is also available for download on Support page). And finally firmware version 1.05 has been released last night. It contains few improvements and bug fixes such as: Clock is visible (orange) even if clock color color cannot be read from EEProm (fail-safe) Some out of bound arrays fixed. Prevents possible memory leaks Small time display always showed time in 24 hour mode. (fixed)
I’ve been working on 2.0 version of PCB for a while, and finally I was able to realize my ideas in hardware. 10 brand new PCBs arrived last weekend, after about 10 days since I placed order on iTead. That’s amazing turnaround time, considering that I chose standard shipping from China. I’m going to first describe what’s new in 2.0 version and then if you wish you can read whole story of how I build and got it working 🙂 That and there’s “in action” Video, after the break. […]
