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DIP switch calendar

habit / activity tracker for the year, based on a popular youtuber's design

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This project is inspired by Simone Giertz, see her switch calendar / activity tracker calendar here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BdZFs3MAqHR/

What the heck is it and how does it work?

For every day you do the thing you track, you flip a switch. For every month the switches are in series, so if you flip every switch in a month, the LED for the month will turn on. At first I thought I could make it smaller and therefore a bit cheaper, but that didn't turn out like I had hoped at all (see this log). 

Choosing switches

At first I thought using a red 5P (P as in position/pin) switch for week days and a 2P blue switch for weekends could be cool, but the gap between each new row made it impossible to rout that AND have numbers next to it. So I opted for 10P dip switches for most of them, one 8P dip switch and seven 1P dip switches. 

LEDs

I just like to use big 10mm LEDs in projects when I can, like in the #BINCL - binary coded decimal 10mm LED clock project, very haptic leds.

dip calendar 1520.svg

scalable vector graphics stuff for dip layout on a 1520, basically fritzing without logic

svg+xml - 3.36 MB - 01/13/2018 at 14:18

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DIPcalendar.zip

ZIP file of KiCad project, just in case someone is interested. Please don't.

Zip Archive - 86.51 kB - 01/13/2018 at 14:16

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  • designing a PCB and then nope, nope, nope

    davedarko01/13/2018 at 11:37 13 comments

    With no idea of the size I started to roughly layout the idea in EAGLE but soon noticed that I'd run into the size restriction of the "free" version I have. So I thought to myself, why not use KiCad for this idea and it worked out! Overcoming some UI quirks and stuff I'm not used to is a small price to pay for an unlimited boardsize, I thought to myself.

    But I soon missed the auto-router :( I've routed everything and finally got to the point where I was ready for an OSHPark upload... but wow that price! - a pretty fair price and I probably can get it cheaper from a pcb producer you'd no doubt want to write in the comments, but I've decided to try a good old perfboard instead. 

    So here is what I've produced in Inkscape so far, it really helped to draw the 15 x 20 cm2 and notice that I've bought all the wrong sizes, starting with a 10x22 board and a 12x18 board. I plan on adding a decal before soldering, maybe a gold sticker and print something purple on it as a tribute to the OSHPark boards I've never ordered. 

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Ted Yapo wrote 01/13/2018 at 12:33 point

Mine would always be dark, because in any one month, I'll miss a day of any given thing (exercise, eat vegetables, build something, etc...).  If you gave each switch a resistor and put them all in parallel, you could use current meters to make an analog version that isn't all-or-nothing, for example:  I ate vegetables 35% of the days in March, hurray!

Edit: current meters won't be linear, unless they have a very low resistance.  Summing the currents into an op-amp virtual ground would be better.

  Are you sure? yes | no

davedarko wrote 01/13/2018 at 13:30 point

I was just thinking about that - adding resistors and just short them with every switch so the LED get's brighter. Maybe add one of those VU meter chips and a selector switch for the month. But trying to keep it simple is wanted here :)

  Are you sure? yes | no

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