More clock project

“The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.” 

Sydney J. Harris

We have made reference to the clock project before (here, here and here), and now with some summer time on our hands we have been working away at shaving superfluous bytes off the original poorly conceived code in order to accommodate the marvelous AtMega88A chip (AU$0.80 each).

And it's working beautifully with the basic premise as follows:

• sleep all the time (100μA, most of which is PIR sensor)
• wake up if heat is detected (i.e. a human) and display the time and temperature
• wake up if slide switch to set clock is toggled, and use buttons to set clock time

So even though it looks like a dog's breakfast at the moment, the result is lovely and we'll chuck it all together in a nicely soldered package soon. Perhaps even make a PCB to save on soldering.

Cut the red wire!

The "fun" part of the project has been making the cradle AVR programmer which makes uploading code and therefore development such a breeze. We've made a few of these now for different chips and damn if they don't just work and make life so much easier. More power to the soldering iron we say.

Atmega88a being programmed by USBasp

Now we build the actual clocks and hopefully it will work well "out of the box".

To reinforce that it is really Christmas time, we had a visit from this little fellow today. Hey mate - enjoy the best the season has to offer!

Now that is a colourful coat