PixelTime: Easily-Built Weather Clock

As Dom “2dom” Buchstaller, the creator of this clock and weather display puts it, “Most hackers are driven by a quest for elegance.” Toward…

Jeremy Cook
6 years ago

As Dom “2dom” Buchstaller, the creator of this clock and weather display puts it, “Most hackers are driven by a quest for elegance.” Toward this end, creating something visually appealing, useful and and easy to replicate is the goal of many of our projects, and his device does a great job of fulfilling all of these requirements.

Externally, the gadget takes the form of a low-res matrix screen surrounded by a wooden enclosure. It shows the weather for the current and next day with fun icons, along with time as a series of digits. Control is provided by the ESP8266-based NodeMCU platform, which conveniently comes soldered with pin headers. This allows it to connect to the low-cost P10 matrix display that animates the weather without any soldering whatsoever — helping fulfill the “easy to replicate” requirement.

Baffles were printed for each of the lights in order to create its clean square pixel look, and a sheet of copy paper was used as a diffuser for it. Rather than wiring buttons and connectors to the outside of the device’s enclosure, Buchstaller opted to 3D print a mount for the NodeMCU that exposes the micro USB connector as well as its two buttons to the user. The result is a build that is indeed elegant, and would be (relatively) simple to replicate for anyone with access to a 3D printer.

Jeremy Cook
Engineer, maker of random contraptions, love learning about tech. Write for various publications, including Hackster!
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