Maker Faire RGBPongClock

Ok the power supply just showed up so I’ll begin to setup the board in the next day or so and let you know the instructions go. Thank you again for taking the time to post all of this.

@Miketheone2, I am learning that fritzing is wonderful until you have to add your own components. I haven’t figured it all out yet but I’ll show pictures of the wiring if it kills me!

On the software front, the Photon timer library is working with the Beta Photon firmware. I am also working on some big updates. I am not sure what the timeline for putting all this in the “production” environment is but it will be soon. :smile:

Can you post just a picture. It is killing me having to wait

@Bspranger, which picture do you want to see?

Anything, I am not sure what this “thing” even does or looks like. :smile:

@Bspranger, the RGB Pong Clock project, by Andrew Holmes, was adapted (originally) for the Particle Core. Here are some Vine videos from Andres.

Videos of the clock in action:

https://vine.co/v/hwML6OJrBPw

https://vine.co/v/hgKWh1KzEU0

https://vine.co/v/hgKz5V0jrFn

I adapted the clock to fit in the (more constrained) Core and to use JSON parsing webhooks to do a lot of the work of getting the weather data. For the Spectrum Analyzer clock face, I also had to adapt non-arduino FFT code that could fit in the Core (along with everything else).

At this moment, I am working on a Photon port of the code which requires the un-released (to production) beta Photon firmware. I am also learning how much of a pain fritzing is! My goal for the tutorial is to get a working clock on the Photon using a breadboard and developing a PCB on the side for a permanent version. :smiley:

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Ok, that is super cool!!

That’s pretty cool looking. The Kids would love this.

@Peekay123 will the code you create for the Photo have all the screens shown in the vine videos above?

I don’t really need the audio spectrum EQ but the weather and time looks cool.

Yup all the screens are there :grinning:

Very Very cool - Peekay.It hits me in the “maker - sweet spot” of combining clocks and weather!! V British.
:smile:
It is on the to -do list.

Thank you for posting.

Folks, I believe in the (soon to be released) V0.4.2 of the firmware for Photon (only), the timer and fast IO code presently in beta will be included. That means that you will be able to compile RGBPongClock easily (vs having to do the whole local toolchain thing). I am also working on a PCB for the clock because using a breadboard and jumpers is great and all but it is not a final solution.

For adventurous folks, I suggest getting familiar with webhooks since RGBPongClock uses them. I will be making the existing webhook more flexible by passing it the target city for the weather instead of hard coding it in the webhook. You will also want to look at Spark.function() that is used for controlling the clock via the cloud.

Another thing to explore is getting air quality data from breezomete.com. That is another great wehook candidate and could easily replace the Spectrum clock or add a whole new clock face. The RGBPongClock is a great platform and when I ported it to the Core, flash and RAM were limiting factors. With the Photon having separate system and user code spaces, the limits on RAM and flash are all but gone! :smile:

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@peekay123 How hard would it be to add in some custom weather graphics?

Just as easy as creating graphics for the Sharp Memory Displays, only in color instead of black and white?

@RWB, the only limitation on the Core was the amount of flash. On the Photon, those limits have been raised substantially so adding more weather images would be easy. The animation, however, is done in code. Take a look at the repo code in blinky.h I believe to see the existing graphics. :smile:

@peekay123 Sweet, I’ve gotten pretty good at creating bitmaps and using multiple images to create animations so this is something I could easily modify and share if others like it also.

I don’t have any Photons yet but once the new firmware is ready to go so I can load this over the web I’ll build one.

I’m also thinking that this maybe a cool platform for displaying lots of other data pulled from the web also, like maybe to display data that is sent to the web via some other Photon’s and then I can display the status on this screen also along with the weather and time.

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@peekay123 what components did you have to manually make for fritzing?

Trying to decide if I want to start doing a board layout for a project and which tool to use.

@Bspranger, I gave up on fritz in after some advice from @BDub. The part I needed was an ML16 16 pin shrouded header for the ribbon cable connector. I am using eagle to do the PCB now.

Is eagle also a free tool?

There’s a free version available with some size limitations I believe: http://www.cadsoftusa.com/download-eagle/freeware/

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@Bspranger Take a look at KiCad also, its a good PCB design tool that’s totally free and here is a tutorial for free that took me from knowing nothing at all about PCB design to building 4 layer boards 2 weeks later.

https://contextualelectronics.com/course/kicad-tutorial/

There is a support forum up now also: http://kicad.info/

After looking at Eagle Cad and KiCad I decided to go with Kicad because the full tutorial was available to teach me how to use it and I didn’t find that when it came to Eagle, just tons of separate videos from different people.

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Sweet! I will check it out!