Is that…?
Yes, it’s an LED steampunk wristwatch! It uses the LED wristwatch board (see this previous post). The watch is constructed from a small piece of oak and pieces of brass sheet and tubing. I used hand tools, a Dremel tool and a cordless drill to shape and form each of the pieces.
There are four more LED wristwatch boards left. I wonder what style of watch I should make next…
Here’s one more picture.
Sure, this doesn’t use a vacuum tube, but it’s still a neat way to reuse some old-fashioned 7-segment LED displays. OK, so I can’t wear it yet. It still needs a case and watch band. I am kicking around a few ideas, but feel free to post a comment if you have any suggestions.
The LED displays are quite tiny and would have been used for calculators or similar devices back in the day. They were made by Fairchild as you can see by the original packaging:
The unique thing is that each display has a single die inside with each of the segments etched into it. In the picture below, you get a pretty clear look at the bond wires and the top metal layer. If you click the image, I have annotated the Flickr page.
Back to the watch. It keeps the time with a fairly pedestrian PIC16F628A. It has an internal timer that operates with a separate oscillator (which is the watch crystal in the lower right corner) which can run even during sleep mode. This is critical to keeping the power consumption low. When a timer tick occurs, it generates a wakeup event, and the processor can increment the internal timekeeping registers. The processor can also wake up when one of the buttons is pressed. When that happens, it turns on and starts multiplexing the LEDs so that it can display the time. After a short delay it goes back into sleep mode. I haven’t yet calculated or tested the battery life.
The batteries are ZnAir number 10 (a common hearing aid battery). This is a zinc-air cell that uses oxygen as part of the electrochemical reaction, which is why there is a tiny hole in the top of each cell. Any battery holder has to allow air to make contact with the hole. In many states, these are the only batteries you’re allowed to throw away in the regular garbage. California is one of the exceptions, and the state considers zinc to be hazardous waste, so these batteries have to be collected separately in a category called “universal waste”. To me this seems foolish because I suspect that a lot more zinc is released into landfills as bits of scrap galvanized metal. Things like galvanized flashing, nails, and deck screws. Regardless of legislation, zinc is a lot less harmful than lithium, so remember to dispose of your burned-out LED throwies properly (and not in the regular garbage).
Here’s a puzzle for you: the PIC has 13 I/O pins. The LED displays use 8 (7 segments plus 1 decimal point) anodes and 4 cathodes. That leaves a total of 12 I/O pins, and I am not using the 13th I/O pin (RA4) because it is open drain and not useful in this circuit. So how are the two pushbuttons wired to the PIC? In fact, how can either button cause the PIC to wake up from sleep? Post a comment with your theory. I’ll give you one hint: there is a dual diode connected in some fashion to both switches.
And here’s one last photo to give you an idea of how small this thing is:
You’ve probably seen LCD displays that use electroluminescent panels for the backlight. They’re not so common since the advent of the white LED, but they were used all the time for those 5×7 character displays. Wikipedia has a nice article about electroluminescent technology.
Well, it turns out they can be used to make displays:
Here’s a closeup of the pixels:
The “ghostly” numbers are letters are the result of the screen displaying the same thing for years and years. Looks like it was from a machine used for rapid thermal processing of semiconductor wafers.
This display panel was made by Finlux. There’s a very thorough history of this company and EL displays here: http://www.indiana.edu/~hightech/fpd/papers/ELDs.html.
It’ll be fun coming up with a project for this one. The display is 640×200, “high resolution” CGA. The video inputs are TTL-level video, hsync, vsync, and pixel clock. It will probably work at other frequencies too since the panel just uses high-voltage shift registers, not some special video ASIC. The tricky part will be getting the pixel clock to the device since video card connectors don’t provide that. Maybe I’ll just drive it with a microcontroller…
Let’s take a look inside the previous posted IEE clock:
Here you can see the laced wiring harness for the displays. This is not a multiplexed display–each of the 40 light bulbs has its own transistor driving it. All these wires come off the displays and into a very large DIN-style connector that plugs into the main circuit board. The ICs are all on the other side of the board.
This is a closeup of the main PCB. It’s quite small. You can see the PIC’s ICD header off on the right, along with a header that allows access to the I2C bus for troubleshooting.
And looking at the other side, we can see the driver ICs, the PIC, and the RTC device, along with some passives. You can also see the spare pads I put next to the PIC so that I can easily solder wires to the unused GPIOs if I ever need them.
Some people commented about the switch on the front. I have a decent collection of switches of all colors, types, and vintages. It’s disconcerting for me to see what would be a really neat project marred by boring switches. Here’s a small sampling of my collection:
People really liked the photos of the disassembled IEE module from the other website. Here are a few gratuitous “artsy” shots:
My IEE clock runs on about 6.5VDC. Why the odd voltage? There are sundry voltage drops throughout the circuit that require the power supply voltage to be higher than the 6V rating for the light bulbs. The problem is that you just can’t find 6.5V AC adapters.
Fortunately it’s quite simple to modify an existing AC adapter to run at the new voltage. I’m sure there are other people who might want to get their own custom output voltages, so here’s a short tutorial.
Disclaimer: if you go ahead with this project, you’re doing it at your own risk. AC line voltage is quite dangerous and you could be injured or even killed. If you get shocked, get medical attention right away: there have been people (often with a previously undiagnosed heart condition) who have received a “small shock” only to drop dead a couple of hours later.
Here is what you need: A switching AC adapter, a flat screwdriver, a soldering iron, an assortment of surface mount resistors, and some time. It is important that the AC adapter is of the new switching style rather than the old transformer style–usually you can tell if the AC adapter feels light and is small enough not to block adjacent outlets, yet has a relatively high current rating for its size. I am starting off with a fairly generic 5V 2 amp AC adapter. Yours will likely use a similar circuit inside.
Quick side note: Why are the new AC adapters so much smaller? First, to provide a given amount of power, a transformer (copper windings around some type of core material) has a physical size that decreases as the frequency goes up. A transformer designed to operate at 60Hz or 50Hz is going to be much larger than a transformer that is designed to operate at 15KHz. Since the frequency of the AC line is fixed, these new AC adapters work by converting the input AC to a much higher frequency. There is also a little circuit that looks at the output voltage and tweaks the converter circuit to maintain a constant output voltage. Thus, the new AC adapters have much better regulation than the old styles. As an added bonus, this type of design can operate at 50Hz, 60Hz, 120V, or 240V! To get into more detail, there is a feedback circuit that compares the output voltage to a voltage reference, then sends an error signal to the converter circuit at the primary side of the transformer. The error signal is isolated (for your safety) using an optocoupler.
To take apart the AC adapter, crowbar the plastic halves of the case where they meet in the middle. Try to find the little plastic catches that keep the halves together. You might need two screwdrivers to get them to come apart. Inside you can see a little circuit board with components and some wires.
To modify the output circuit, the feedback circuit must be modified. I sketched out the circuit and learned that this particular AC adapter uses a clone of the TL431 reference+error amplifier circuit (which is the weird zener-diode looking thing in the photo above). This particular device, the AM431, has an internal 2.495V reference. The output voltage is divided down so it can be compared with 2.495V, and this is done with a resistive divider formed by R1 (4.87K) and R10 (5.23K). R10 goes to the output voltage, and R1 goes to ground. In this design, I can only modify R1 since R10 (acting in combination with the feedback capacitor) also determines the loop compensation pole (no need to mess with this). Based on my reverse-engineered schematic of the secondary side, the formula for the output voltage is Vout = (1 + R10/R1) * 2.495. Replacing R1 with a 3.3K resistor should bump up the output voltage.
It’s easier to remove a surface mount resistor using two soldering irons, but if you only have one, you can blob a bunch of solder on top of the resistor to wet both sides, and then flick it off with the iron. Be careful to get rid of any splattered solder since it could cause some dangerous short circuits.
You can test it before putting the case back on by plugging it into a power strip that has a circuit breaker and a switch–turn it off first! Connect a multimeter to the outputs with alligator clips, and use one hand to switch on the power and check the voltage. If you want to be a little extra safe you could plug the power strip into a GFI outlet. The safest approach (especially if you want to take measurements on the AC line side of the isolation barrier) is to connect the whole rig to an isolation transformer. Once you’ve confirmed that it works, put the case back together and mark the label with the new output voltage. If the output voltage is higher, you will need to decrease the current rating proportionally. If you’re decreasing the output voltage, you shouldn’t increase the current rating since internal components may have a pretty low maximum current capability.
If you want more information about the TL431 (which is a really neat little device that could be useful for lots of other circuits), check out this application note: Designing with the TL431.