Disappointed by Current Kitchen Timers? Design Your Own!
Martin Jonasson's DIY device counts down the minutes and seconds on an LED matrix.
Programmer Martin Jonasson became fed up with his IKEA kitchen timer and did what any maker would do, design something better. His minimalist version is built around the Teensy 2.0 and features an Adafruit Charlieplexed PWM LED matrix driver, a Charlieplexed 16 x 9 LED matrix, and a machined metal rotary encoder on a piece of perfboard.
The handwired unit also packs a PowerBoost 500 charger, a 500mAh lithium-ion battery, a piezo buzzer and a magnetic feet for RGB LED matrices. All of the electronics are housed inside a compact enclosure consisting of six laser-cut acrylic frames, all stacked together.
In total, Jonasson paid around $120 for the hardware and another $60 for the laser-cut acrylic. He has uploaded a BOM, schematics and code to his GitHub page for those who would like to recreate his project.