The (Propeller powered) FlipClock - A potential product?
Microcontrolled
Posts: 2,461
I've just gotten done with my recent project, and accelerometer controlled digital clock, and I started wondering whether or not this could actually become a consumer product. I have a writeup on my blog here: http://microcontrolled.com/?p=72
(Sorry I keep linking to my blog, but once I write an article, there's no reason to do it twice.)
It's easy to use, fun, and useful. I was wondering, if I wanted to make this a commercial product, is it worth it and if so how would I do it? I understand this is a big undertaking.
Thanks,
Microcontrolled
(Sorry I keep linking to my blog, but once I write an article, there's no reason to do it twice.)
It's easy to use, fun, and useful. I was wondering, if I wanted to make this a commercial product, is it worth it and if so how would I do it? I understand this is a big undertaking.
Thanks,
Microcontrolled
Comments
Maybe the easiest way to make money is to sell it as a kit somewhere like GadgetGangster...
I would make GPS and option to allow a lower cost version.
C.W.
A comment or two - maybe you've thought of these already.
1. Time off the GPS - doesn't that come in Z time (GMT)? What if you travel to another time zone? Would it update?
2. Setting the alarm time. You already have the accelerometer built in maybe shake 4 times to enter the alarm set mode, shake left and right to pick hours or minutes, then shake up/down to adjust the selected digit.
3. Snooze function?
4. If it had a battery it would be a great travel alarm clock - Ever try to find an outlet within 10 feet of the bedside table in a hotel room?
I would buy one. I think the final version would have to be very user friendly to be a big seller.
Overall I think you have a winning product here.
Alex
Should be possible to never use a button.
@Alex41: Good idea with the GPS. I have it manually set to Eastern Time, but adding in a function that changed it according to the time zone would make it worth buying the "gps version" to people who travel often. As for a snooze function, maybe I could make knocking it over set snooze and flipping it over turn the alarm off. If it's going to be battery powered, it's going to have to drive all of those LEDs. The regulators get too hot to touch when running off wall power, so I don't know how long a battery would last. As I said before, maybe I could have a "Traveler's version"....
@potatohead: To set the alarm, I'm thinking set it upright on it's side for 3 seconds, or until the digits start blinking, then tilt it side to side to set the time. Tilting more will make it go faster, and it will be set in increments of 5 minutes (who sets their alarm to 6:53?). When done, simply set it back on it's side until the digits stop blinking. There will be no hours or minutes settings, it will just count the hours when the minutes reset.
@Ravenkallen: The accelerometer I used is the 3AD module from GG. It cost $8 for the module and the bare chip is only $2-$3.
What regulators are you using and what is your input voltage (from the power supply)? Have you tried measuring the actual current usage?
Sorry the PowerTwig didn't work out for this. What propeller main board are you using? I can't see how the GPS, LEDs, etc could get near the PowerTwig's max, but I could see how the spikes from driving the speaker would affect the output to the point of sending the prop into a brownout state. Try adding a large cap to the PowerTwig's output to see if that would help sustain the output through the spike in current draw. In my Reverse GeoCache project, I was using a protoboard, GPS, uOLED and servo and I did not see any issues when I would drive the servo (which would be a spike similar to the speaker) but the protoboard has a large cap on the supply to aid with those spikes.
I second schill's question about input voltage from the wall wart. I don't think current should be an issue, so it may be that you are asking your regulators to drop too much voltage?
Thank you very much for pointing out that I COMPLETELY forgot to post a picture of the circuits! Here it is:
http://microcontrolled.com/FlipClock5.JPG
Now for some additional info.
The whole circuit board is custom, and the enclosure I'm using is a Hammond enclosure bought at my local electronics store (he doesn't carry 10k resistors, but he carries Hammond enclosures?!?!) and I personally like the simplistic design and the piano black finish that reminds me of a Nintendo DS. I cut the square hole with a Dremel.
Thanks for all the replies!
Microcontrolled
Some things to think about...
1) How can you reduce number of components?
2) How can you reduce component cost, ie: Is the Prop the correct uC for this?
3) Should you vary LED brightness based on ambient light?
Be creative, do your really need a seperate RTC, do the LED's need to be powered from the regulated supply?
C.W.
If your internal voltages are 5V and 3.3V (I can't tell from the picture), you should be able to keep things cooler by dropping from 12V input to much lower - maybe even as low as 6V depending on the dropout of your regulators.
Do you have decoupling capacitors on the prop power pins? I don't see any on the top of the board.
I'm estimating a total parts cost of $30, which although isn't bad, with profit would be about $50, which is a little steep for a digital clock. If I dumped the RTC and used the Propeller's internal clock it would be down to $22, if I used cheaper regulators $21, if the 4 segment display is less than $4 that would also save, but I don't have a source yet so I wouldn't know. I would also have to count the $6 enclosure, the $? PCB, and the ~$5 wall wart. This is going to take some work to knock it down any farther....
@schill: I dropped the input voltage to 6V and the heat has dropped dramatically. Thanks!
Robert
Here is the updated code:
''Name: Digital Clock ''Author: Corbin Adkins (Microcontrolled) ''Description: ''This project is in it's early stages of development. Version 1.1 has GPS support CON _clkmode = xtal1 + pll16x _xinfreq = 5_000_000 pulse = 190 VAR long stack[50] byte time[4] long hour, minute, second, day, month, year, dow 'Date data long latitude, longitude long alarmhour, alarmminute byte t,o byte gpsenabled OBJ rtc : "DS1302_full" gps : "GPS_Float" ns : "NS_sound_drv_051_22khz_16bit.spin" i2c : "PSB_I2CDriver" ' ser : "FullDuplexSerial" PUB Start | i,c, alarmflag, oldmin,x,y,z, ycounter, absx gps.Init ' ser.start(31,30,0,9600) rtc.init(16,17,18) rtc.config rtc.write(rtc.command(rtc#clock,rtc#tc,rtc#w),(%1010 << 4) + (1 << 2)+ ( 1 )) 'Initialize the Accelerometer i2c.WriteAccelReg($16,%0101) cognew(Disp,@stack) dira[0..14]~~ outa[12..14]~~ gpsenabled := "!" alarmhour := 6 alarmminute := 45 repeat rtc.readTime( @hour, @minute, @second ) 'read time and date from RTC rtc.readDate( @day, @month, @year, @dow ) if gpsenabled == "!" latitude := gps.Float_Latitude_Deg 'Dump data into variables longitude := gps.Float_Longitude_Deg year := gps.Long_Year month := gps.Long_Month day := gps.Long_Day hour := gps.Long_Hour minute := gps.Long_Minute second := gps.Long_Second if hour < 5 'Adjustment for the eastern time zone hour := 24-(4-hour) else hour -= 4 x:=i2c.GetAccelX8 y:=i2c.GetAccelY8 ' ser.tx(13) ' ser.str(string("X= ")) ' ser.dec(x) ' ser.str(string(" Y= ")) ' ser.dec(y) if y > 0 ycounter++ else ycounter~ if ycounter == 4 ycounter~ repeat until y < 0 x:=i2c.GetAccelX8 y:=i2c.GetAccelY8 if x > 0 alarmminute++ if x < 0 alarmminute-- if alarmminute == 60 alarmhour++ alarmminute~ if alarmminute == -1 alarmhour-- alarmminute := 59 if alarmhour == 25 alarmhour := 1 alarmminute~ if alarmhour == 0 alarmhour := 24 alarmminute := 59 dec(alarmhour,0) dec(alarmminute,2) waitcnt(clkfreq/( ||x) + cnt) if x > 0 and x < 100 outa[13..14] := %10 if hour == alarmhour and minute == alarmminute ifnot alarmflag == "!" ns.start(22) repeat 500 ns.PlaySoundFM(0,ns#SHAPE_TRIANGLE,3000,ns#DURATION_INFINITE,255,$2457_9DEF) waitcnt(clkfreq/4 + cnt) ns.StopSound(0) waitcnt(clkfreq/4 + cnt) x:=i2c.GetAccelX8 if x < 10 quit ns.Stop alarmflag := "!" oldmin := minute ifnot oldmin == minute alarmflag~ if hour > 12 hour -= 12 decInverted(minute,0) decInverted(hour,2) if x < 0 or x > 100 outa[13..14] := %01 if hour > 12 hour -= 12 dec(hour,0) dec(minute,2) waitcnt(clkfreq + cnt) !outa[12] PUB dec(char, display) | i,c t~ o~ if char < 10 time[display] := numbers[0] time[display+1] := numbers[char] else c := char c -= 10 t++ repeat until c =< 0 if c > 10 t++ c -= 10 if c == 0 t++ next else o := c quit time[display] := numbers[t] time[display+1] := numbers[o] PUB decInverted(char, display) | i,c t~ o~ if char < 10 time[display+1] := inverts[0] time[display] := inverts[char] else c := char c -= 10 t++ repeat until c =< 0 if c > 10 t++ c -= 10 if c == 0 t++ next else o := c quit time[display+1] := inverts[t] time[display] := inverts[o] PRI Disp | i dira[0..14]~~ repeat repeat i from 0 to 3 outa[8..11]~ outa[8+i]~~ outa[0..6] := time[i] waitcnt(clkfreq/pulse + cnt) 'waitcnt(clkfreq/80 + cnt) DAT numbers byte %00000001, %01001111, %00010010, %00000110, %01001100, %00100100, %00100000, %00001111, %00000000, %00000100 inverts byte %00000001, %01111001, %00010010, %00110000, %01101000, %00100100, %00000100, %01110001, %00000000, %00100000Welcome!
If you wish to have another pair of eyes on this upcoming article, give a holler.
My Nuts and Volts article was in last year's July issue and was on my Self Locking RFID box: http://www.parallax.com/tabid/827/Default.aspx
Now you see why I think this one is better! :-)
@davejames: Hey! I didn't know you would be reading this thread! Your help last time was probably what got my article accepted into the magazine! Once I finish the article, I'll post a public link to the rough draft for anyone to examine - but as soon as it gets accepted I'll have to take it down due to legal rights.
I'm posting because I have a schematic made and I would like to be informed if I left anything out. PLEASE don't nail me on some technicality like "traces too close together..." or something similar! (I know someone will just because I said that. :-) )
You can view the schematic here: http://microcontrolled.com/FlipClockSchematic.bmp
As a DIY project for N&V of something, it hits the right spot, especially using a prop which can showcase how easy it is to do something with parallel procesing and no using interrupts. It is a clever idea with an elegant implementation.
Emerson clock radios now receive a radio signal to self set time. Are they pulling a GPS signal (I dont think so) or one of those time-code radio signals (I think so)? Is there a cheap chip out there that does this?
I've never played with these and don't know how easy they are to use.
My watch syncs almost every night using this signal. The signal is notoriously weak and it's not always easy to pick up. My old watch did not do as good a job as this one does. The further you are from Colorado, the weaker the signal. It's better when it's night at your location and in Colorado.
I have neither the funds nor am I willing to get a PCB made for this, simply because I don't think it would be a profitable investment, so that is out of the question.
The reason why it didn't get accepted was because I was not willing to redesign my entire product, though I might in the future.
Keep going with what you're doing, don't lose faith, don't stop trying! The work of yours I saw at UPENE was very impressive and your personality, character and maturity are admirable!
OBC