It’s that clock again
Tonight, I fitted up the first version of the meter scales. They’re not bad, but I need to re-do them with slightly bigger numbers and pick a colour for the backlight. I’m also in two minds about the white on black.
I think ideally I’d like some kind of flickery orange “valve” style glow for the backlight – but I’m not sure that’s going to be particularly easy with LEDs. I wonder how many spare output pins I’ve got on the microcontroller to do the flickering. hmm…
I wasn’t sure about white on black when you said it but I think it looks good. I feel like the “Seconds” etc are a tad large. When you say backlight I’m assuming the gauges are really lit from the front? or does it shine actually through the dial? Have you considered a weak filament bulb for that warm amber “antique” feeling?
I think you’re right about the legends being a little large compared to the rest of the gauge – I’ll tweak that when I make the V2 gauges. I’ll also increase the “branding” text size so it’s readable.
“Out of the box” the dials don’t have any illumination at all so anything I do is a retro-fit. As the replacement dials are printed on paper and then laminated I should be able to light them from behind – hopefully illuminating the scale/legend in a cool glowing manner.
I have considered filament bulbs – but I might have to switch out the PSU I’m using, I’m not sure it’s got enough poke to do that! It also means completely disassembling the clock if a bulb blows.
In clock related news – I fixed a software bug last night which meant that it only displayed the hours in the PM. I hadn’t noticed that problem until recently as I only work on the clock in the evenings!
wow, hardcore, retro-fitting the illumination! props to you for doing this rather than just dreaming it like some people (ahem) around here! LOL@ the bug!
I think this project, whilst slow going (I really should have finished it off at least a month ago) is going to be the first project I’ve finished in a long time! Apathy FTW!
It has made me think that perhaps next year, I could replace “photo a day” with “project a week”. Hmm…