instructables

LED Matrix Alarm Clock (with MP3 Player)

by cermakmara

This Arduino based alarm clock has everything you would expect from your alarm - possibility to wake you with
every song you like, snooze button and its easy to control through three buttons. There are three main blocks - LED
matrix, RTC module and MP3 shield with speaker.

Step 1: Material & Tools

LED Matrix Alarm Clock (with MP3 Player): Page 1

 LED Matrix
Arduino Uno
MP3 shield DHF player Mini
RTC module DS1307
Any Speaker
3 buttons (with pullup/pulldown resistors 10k)
Wires
Plexi (or any material from which you want your box)
3D printer (for printing matrix boxes)
DC power supply connector
USB B female connector.

I believe that you can modify this material list based on your possibilities (de nitely you can use di erent MP3
Shields, di erent RTC modules and everything should work just ne:)

Step 2: LED Matrix

As an inspiration, I used this instructables to build LED
matrix, I only decided not to use prototyping board
and design my own PCB. You can nd my project in
circuit maker here. You can also use schematics and if
you want to send gerber data (rather then generate it
from circuit maker project by our own) let me know I
will provide it to you:). Some few tips - rstly I used
very cheap LED but after I solder all diodes and run
the arduino code, turned out the variance of LED
diode color was not acceptable so I needed to order
di erent ones and do another LED matrix. I will
explain the working principle in Part arduino. Anyway,
to nd out if you did good job and display is working,
just replace the constants in DisplayChar function in
main arduino loop ( e.g. instead of DisplayChar(1,
letA); use DisplayChar(0, 9); which will write number 9
starting from 1st column), you dont need to comment
anything else.

LED Matrix Alarm Clock (with MP3 Player): Page 2

 Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FEV/DPPT/K970192V/FEVDPPTK970192V.pdf
…

Step 3: Other HW

LED Matrix Alarm Clock (with MP3 Player): Page 3

The other HW components to build alarm clock are: some reason I wasn´t successful in serial
RTC module, MP3 shield, Buttons and arduino UNO. communication (it didnt work together with SPI and
I2C communication used for other componets) but I
For RT C m o dule I used module DS130 7 and library was kind a OK just to use IO pins (I used ADKEY1
MD_DS1307.h its quite simple everything works connected to arduino Digital output as a trigger to
smoothly, but I would recommend probably use more play song and than pin USB+ to stop the music).
precise RTC module like 3231 or other - if I let it
without power for about few days it started to loose As you can see on picture, I used three simple buttons
some seconds. on prototyping board connected to Digital Inputs of
arduino with pull down 10kOhm resistors.
M P3 s hie ld DHF pla y e r M ini - This MP3 shield is
really easy, you can upload some mp3 to SD card, The wiring for arduino can be clearly seen in Arduino
connect any speaker you nd and then it can be code:)
operated in two ways either through serial
communication, or by I/O pins. To be honest from

Step 4: Mechanical Parts

LED Matrix Alarm Clock (with MP3 Player): Page 4
To create view of nice regular display, you need to use
some grid to de ne the exact shape for each LED. I
used simple 3D printed grid which works just ne - It
is made from two parts, left and right, you can nd
the STL data in attachment.
The box is milled on CNC machine from milk plexi. It is
totally up to you from which material you make in,
only one recommendation, if you will use the similar
material as I did, put some semipermeable layer to
part which is directly on LEDs to prevent LEDs being
visible as a point source of light. You can see that in
side wall there is a space for DC power supply
connector and USB to upload better ideas of code:) I
used standard glue for plastics to glue plexi parts
together. In attachment there are STL les for all parts
(Thanks my friend Peshi for designing this super cool
box:) )

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FAT/VP28/K9701OWU/FATVP28K9701OWU.stl
…

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FLR/Q4Z6/K9701OXI/FLRQ4Z6K9701OXI.stl
…

LED Matrix Alarm Clock (with MP3 Player): Page 5

 https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FMV/1VI2/K970267T/FMV1VI2K970267T.step
… Download

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FGN/01KG/K970267U/FGN01KGK970267U.step
…

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FKW/8AXR/K970267V/FKW8AXRK970267V.step
…

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FQZ/RPSL/K970267W/FQZRPSLK970267W.step
…

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FQ1/9BF5/K970267X/FQ19BF5K970267X.step
…

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FPB/R3B2/K970267Y/FPBR3B2K970267Y.step
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Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FXJ/FB8M/K970267Z/FXJFB8MK970267Z.step
…

Step 5: Arduino Part

In part related to arduino I would just like to brie y
describe the main loop algorithm and then few words
to controlling the Shift registers through SPI and
Alarm setup.
In the main loop you just basically check whether
some button is pressed, check whether the RTC send
you newly updated values of minutes and whether its
time to play some pink oyd song:) and if not, you just
periodically turn on and o LEDs with set numbers.
Co nt ro lling t he LED m a t rix - For better
understanding it is good to follow instructables for
LED matrix I mentioned at beginning, but just brie y -
it is important to understand that to show numbers
or letters in this Matrix, you need to periodically
choose which LED from set row will need to be turned
on, and then turn the all LEDs from row for some
time. In the next step you will turn o this row and
prepare second row and this again and again. What
this mean? - dont use any delays! - otherwise it wont
show you numbers but just blinks:)
I use quite di erent and I would say easier way to
control shift registers (thanks to my friend Krystof
who wrote this smooth function). So rst step
(preparing the data for shift register is happening in
function DisplayChar, where you just nd the wanted
symbol from array of constant and prepare data for
registers. And when the function UpdateDisplay is
called the data are shifted to outputs (for more info
see screen from arduino IDE)
Ala rm S e t up . There are three buttons, left, middle,
and right. When you doublepress right and middle,
you will enter the alarm menu. In Alarm menu there
are following functions available - left button (Set
alarm for hours) middle button (Set alarm for
minutes) Right button long press ( con rming alarm),
long press of middle and right button (erasing
existing alarm).
When the alarm is set (you can recognize this by the
fact the alarm turn on mark LED in bottom right) and
Clock will start to play your favourite morning song:)
there are following functions avaliable - left button
(Snooze for another 5minutes), middle button (cancel
alarm).

LED Matrix Alarm Clock (with MP3 Player): Page 6

 Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FI5/5FA4/K97024HQ/FI55FA4K97024HQ.ino
…

Step 6: Completing Alarm

At the end, I just glue everything inside together:) and
close the glue the back part of alarm. In the attached
video, you can see the control mechanism of this
alarm. Just note to the video, in the video it looks like
its blinking, its caused by the principle of turning on
and o LEDs and camera caption frame rate - in reality
your eyes see this as turned on without blinking:)
For future I would like to try di erent material -
ideally some black:) and to add some more functions,
like showing the date, maybe temperature etc:)
Hope you will enjoy building your own alarm clock,
and looking forward for your ideas:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q2TgzYwoGc&feature=youtu.be

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