Binary Clock

binary clock

Hans Summers has an amazing collection of projects. His most popular project is the binary clock. It runs off of mains, uses a bunch of TTL logic chips and a binary counter. He has posted links to the many projects that have been derived from his original post. Warning: project uses LEDs. If the binary clock isn’t your thing he has lots of other clocks, radio, frequency counters, computer and other projects.

[thanks Alan Parekh]

33 thoughts on “Binary Clock

  1. nice project thanks for the warning aboute the leds shame other wise a good project steve and buy the way readers have sent in my own hacks so there and they dont involve leds ok

  2. well cal i have a nice playstation 2 eyetoy hack i use it as a web cam great little cam moded driver and also a computer hack to increase frame rates in pc games using a sound card does that appeal to u cal

  3. eliot, i love the site, I really do (long time reader, new poster).

    however, would it be so hard to add a new deny from line into apache.conf/.htaccess?

    or atleast add an ignore feature into the comments code. or get this, wrap comments with tags like this; <span class=”poster.steve preece”> (or whatever the poster’s name is) and i’ll hack up a moz extension to set certain spans too display=”none”… hell, i’ll even document it and make sure i use a grand total of sh!t loads of LEDs.

    jeez, some people. thanks for your time.

  4. You might be able to write a greasemonkey script to do that with what’s already there. :D (I wouldn’t be so irritated if Cal/Steve actually, like, used punctuation or something.)

    Heh, this looks like something I should try when I have the time. Why the led warning though? Is there something about leds I don’t know (Highly likely)?

  5. As to that keyboard mod, I think I have a workable idea:
    Replace keys on normal keyboard with metal surface keys, add a piggyback board with 220v mains and a uC to monitor keystrokes. When a threshold for mispellings is exceeded, turn on 220v to the key surface.

    Sweaty hands may need an additional hack to dispose of a body : )

  6. Decidedly shiny hack; I like. Very nice with the scap construction. reminds me of what can be done with steel – you’d be amazed at what a truck’s leaf spring can do if you apply a bit of persuasive rearrangement to it :) – woot recycling :)

    jfh: LEDs are objected to by some members of the readership. Therefore, mocking.

    And as for the quesiton of filtering; dropping anything with the sequence of bytes 0x20 0x75 0x20 would seem a good start. Perhaps have 0x20 0x75 0x72 0x20, as well, just in case.

  7. Posted Jun 30, 2006, 9:37 PM ET by Benjamin Roy

    This isn’t a hack. It’s a how-to.

    Ok, I have a hack, and I don’t know why hackaday doesn’t use it. click on my name, and click on $30 serial Bluetooth adapter. I have been working on it for the last month.

    —–

    All things being equal, you merely cracked open a piece of plastic and soldered wires to some well-labeled contact points.

    At any rate, elliot,

  8. Pretty neat. I’m not enough of a geek to want one, just enough of a geek to admire it! Ha.

    Anyway, Steve’s various incoherent mumblings have got me thinking about new projects I can do with LEDs. In fact why don’t we all make lots of new hacks with LEDs. Lets put them in everything. Maybe Steve’s head will explode with childish frustration.

  9. Posted Jun 30, 2006, 9:37 PM ET by Benjamin Roy

    This isn’t a hack. It’s a how-to.

    Ok, I have a hack, and I don’t know why hackaday doesn’t use it. click on my name, and click on $30 serial Bluetooth adapter. I have been working on it for the last month.

    —–

    All things being equal, you merely cracked open a piece of plastic and soldered wires to some well-labeled contact points. If this clock or any of his other projects are not considered hacks, then how can you consider what you have done to be a hack?

    Here’s my short list for what is considered a hack:

    a. Gaining some secret or creative functionality out of a piece of hardware or software.

    b. A quick and inelegant method of getting a job done (or pranking people).

    As far as a lot of us are concerned, this hack easily falls under “b”. He could have done this with a microcontroller, surface mount components and a silkscreened double-sided PCB. Instead, he threw it together with parts that an average hobbyist electronics engineer has in their toolbox. That’s hack enough for me.

    At any rate, I love his site. I think that the DIY Voltmeter also looks pretty and simple to make.
    http://www.hanssummers.com/electronics/equipment/voltmeter/index.htm

  10. I don’t see how LEDs aren’t cool. Humans are naturally attracted to light, like fire for instance…

    you know what would be cool? An oLED matrix printed on a foldable mat
    can we say, 19″ TV in my pocket? W00t
    but i doubt that would be within my price range

  11. Is it just me… or has the community been arguing about what is allowed or not allowed to enter the realm of ‘hackdome’ a lot recently?

    Really, it just misses the point… is it so hard to appreciate the work of someone else (perhaps give advice if you’ve done something similar)? Flame me/this if you disagree — just put aside the superiority complex…

  12. humm, led’s are freaking awesome. i dunno why anyone would hate them. they provide a simple way to show something, with out having to fiddle with an lcd of any sort. keep the led hacks comming…
    haha i made something like this for my seventh grade science fair, i don’t think it told the exact time, it just counted up in binary from the time it was turned on in seconds…. I dont think it was too terribly accurate, either.
    sweet project, keep em comming hackaday.
    -bryan

  13. i like binary clocks, but why do they all count the day in regular 24:60:60 format? the best use of a binary clock would be to count the time of day by powers of two. For instance the first light would tell you if it was am or pm, the second if it was after or before 6, the third would tell you if it was after or before 3 and 9. then 1.30, 4.30, 7.30 and 10.30 etc.

  14. Since there seems to be some division on whether LED projects are appropriate or not, I recommend the following: 1.) adopting a new meme to amuse ourselves, namely, “ZOMG LEDS!!1!!1!”. 2.) someone should immediately take this to an extreme by making a blinking sign of LEDS that says just that.

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