Word Clock

The motivation of this project was purely to learn new skills related to engineering, mainly focused around electrical design. I wanted to create something that would be commemorate my intellectual curiosity as well, and so the idea for the word clock was born. Not bound to any classes or deadlines, I completed this project in my free time at Tech. Learning EAGLE and tinkering with the circuit design helped me understand electrical circuits and components better.

To create this custom PCB, I sketched out a basic layout and then complied the necessary components. Then, I imported everything into EAGLE and connected everything, sending the file to a manufacturing house. I hand soldered everything to the board when it came in, and then flashed an OS to the controller via a USB connector. The logic I programmed in C++. For the case itself, I used the woodworking shop at Tech to laser cut the face and join the body together. 

A large lesson learned from this project was that the first try isn't always 100% right. I was so excited to get my first custom built PCB that I failed to build the circuit on a breadboard first to make sure it worked. When I opened the package and soldered all of my components on, I was sorely disappointed to find out it didn't even power on. Lesson learned; the next revision lit up wonderfully on the breadboard and then worked perfectly on the second version PCB. Another takeaway was through hole resistors are much easier to solder than surface mount... who knew?

Initial schematic and board built in EAGLE