• Components Get, Features Set

    Torbjörn Lindholm • 04/20/2019 at 16:55 • 0 comments

    Now onto features that may or may not be implemented:

    • Serial communication to set the time in a batch configuration
    • GPS time
    • LED panel (video wall panel, monochrome) support
      • Or I2C LCD display
      • Or SPI LCD display (128x64 GLCD/OLED)
      • Or simple LED matrix display
    • Adjustable volume
      • Automatic volume?
      • Digital configurable volume perhaps?
    • Adjustable brightness
      • Especially automatic dimming
    • Multiple languages
      • If voice segments exceed 255 it won't work
      • oh
      • No worries, you add more folders per language
    • ESP32 for NTP support
      • Or ESP8266?
      • Or MEGA2560???
      • WIRED NETWORKS?????
    • Proximity sensor for voice activation
      • Wave your hand in front of the clock to make it say the time
    • Integrity check
      • Not everything, just basic things like SD card read failure, invalid time, low battery and speaker check
      • SD card read failure and speaker check could be done by just reading the report from the module and attempting to play 000.mp3 which is a start-up sound
      • Maybe have a secondary beeper inside to show that the initialization failed for voice prompt
      • Have voice prompt for recoverable failures like invalid time
    • Seasonal greetings
    • Voice mapping documentation for custom voices
      • Must include support for BUSY pin
      • The voice must not rely on the static time, but on the status change from PLAYING to IDLE
    • IR remote
    • Temperature readout in both Celsius and Fahrenheit
    • Time-dependent greeting ("Good morning", "Good afternoon", and "Good evening")
    • Randomized starting line ("The time is", "It's", "It is")
    • Date and year readout ("Today is Saturday, January fifth, 2019.")
    • Verbose time ("It's a quarter to nine")

  • Component Selection

    Torbjörn Lindholm • 04/16/2019 at 16:33 • 0 comments

    Okay, let's begin.

    Time to select our components!

    For the main board, I'm currently using Arduino Uno because that's what I have but if required I may move to Arduino Mega 2560 (either compatible board or 3D printer controller board which basically is Arduino Mega with extra hardware thingamajigs)

    For the display, I have few selections:

    • I2C OLED display (long one, not 128x64)
    • RepRapDiscount Smart Controller (basically a display, rotary encoder with click button, speaker, a button and a SD card reader with only 20 wires)
    • 8x8 LED matrix display using MAX7219
    • I2C 16x2 character display (YWRobot addon board, uses Philips FCF8574 chip)
    • RepRapDiscount Full Graphic Smart Controller (128x64 monochrome graphic LCD with all the features of Smart Controller)

    For the speakers I plan to use 0.5~1W paper cone speaker with the venerable 2W tiny amp with adjustable volume.

    For the nighttime dimming function I'll just use a transistor circuit. I don't think it needs any fancy microcontroller features but if I have any pins left and if I don't muck the code up too much I might add the fancy PWM dimming.