Monthly Archives:January 2017

Clock with Timer

03 Jan 17
volker
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Another little project is this one:

clock1

An LED Clock driven by an ESP8266, using those 8×8 LED Matrix components:

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01BUTAFW2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

In principle very easy. The ESP is programmed with Arduino, using a NTP Library and a Library for the Matrix LEDs. The only tricky part was to reprogram the Matrix Library because each of the 8×8 matrix elemens was turned by 90 degrees, so I had to programmatically turn them back. Otherwise I had to resolder all of the 8×8 components (too lazy for that).

Besides having a nice clock now I also implemented it to be controllable via UDP commands. So far 2 functions are implemented:

Clock and Timer. I also implemented a little App for those functions

 

clock_app

We have settings to specify the IP and port of the clock. 4 Buttons determine the functionality of the clock:

Set Timer => Set the timer to a given value (hour, minutes, seconds). After it is set the clock shows the timer counting down.

Cancel Timer => Already indicates that this resets the timer and displays the clock.

Show Time => While the timer is still counting down, the current time can be displayed.

Show Timer => If you decided to display the time instead of the timer, this brings you back to display the current timer value.

 

ESP32 arrived

03 Jan 17
volker
No Comments

I am an absolut fan of the ESP8266 in its various forms. It is really cool to build things with it. A device with Wifi, several IO Pins and programmable via C or Arduino is a perfect match for small devices.

The biggest drawback of such a device is: In order for the Wifi to work, you need to connect it to a Wifi Network. In most cases this is the one of your home. So you provide the code with your WIFI SID and passphrase (hardcoded).

If you want to use the device in another WiFi network it needs to be reprogrammed. This is not really portable. Bluetooth for controlling devices is suited way better. You pair the device, then you communicate with it. Bingo.

Espressif must have noticed or they just took the next logical evolutionary step of the their 8266 and created the ESP32. It is more powerful, has more IO lines and bluetooth.

It was long announced. Now you can buy it. So did I. thanx to Watterott I ordered and got 5 of them. Now I am looking for some projects to fit.

esp32