[Markus] turn his breadboard LED matrix tinkering into an alarm clock which wakes him each morning.
Don’t be fooled by exactly how clean his assembly work is. That’s not a fabbed PCB, it’s a hunk of eco-friendly protoboard which a great deal of point-to-point soldering on the back side. It’s driven by the MSP430 G2452 which is oriented vertically in this image. The two horizonal ICs are 595 shift registers which drive the LED modules.
We already discussed the tidiness of his assembly, however there’s one other truly awesome style element. On the back of the system is what appears like a battery holder for two AA cells. He’s utilizing just one Lithium Iron Phosphate battery (3.2V) which is in the upper of the two cavities. This let him cut the lower part of the holder at an angle to act as a mean the clock.
Don’t miss the video which walks us with the individual interface. It has what you’d expect from an alarm clock. however there is a truly bright white LED which mimics a sunrise clock as well as it does much more than just buzz one note when the thing goes off.