Arduino Nano Propeller LED Analog Clock

2019-20

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF

ENGINEERING
MYSURU-570008

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

ENGINEERING

MINI PROJECT [EC0201] –VI Semester

Synopsis On

Arduino nano propeller LED analog clock

Under the guidance of:

Ms. Anupama B C
Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE.

Submitted By:
Ranjith T M : 4NI18EC418
Chiranjeevi J K : 4NI18EC408

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Arduino Nano Propeller LED Analog Clock
2019-20

2019-20

ABSTRACT
This project is a different view of holographical clock construct in linear array
arrangement. It will be the coordination of electrical, electronics and some
mechanical engineering. This “illusion” is based on inertia of human eye. The
motor spins at a constant rate such that the LEDs rotate around a center point. As
the LEDs spin around they light up sequentially such that they will display the
current time. The motor spinning fast enough that the human eye will perceive all
of the display is on at once, and the viewer will be able to read the time
constantly. A Arduino is used to keep the time and blink the LEDs in an
appropriate pattern to show the numbers. It has to be programmed so that it will
both keep time and also send the appropriate signals to the LEDs to light them in
the correct sequence. Its looks like the digital numbers are floating in the air.

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Arduino Nano Propeller LED Analog Clock
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Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Literature survey
3. Block diagram
4. Hardware/software tools used
5. Working explanation
6. Applications
7. Limitations
8. Future enhancement
9. References

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Required materials

 Arduino nano
 PCB board (35mm x 150mm)
 3mm LED x 8
 220-ohm Resistor x 8
 100-ohm Resistor x 1
 10k-ohm Resistor x 2
 Optical sensor(H21A1)
 Transistor BC337(NPN)
 500mah LiPo Battery 3.7 volts (preferably a small battery size)
 12volt DC motor
 Macro USB cable
 Male header (15 pins) x 4
 Male header (2pins) x 2
 Soldering iron
 Solder
 Jumper wire x 9
 Standard wire
 Wire strippers
 Wire cutters
 Hot Glue Gun
 Box/wood/Cardboard

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 Double female jumper cable

Introduction

The propeller clock is a linear array of light emitting diodes, rotating at a high
angular velocity to generate a circular screen. Now by synchronizing these light
emitting diodes, and keeping in mind the concepts of persistence of vision & limit
of resolution, we can display a clock. The persistence of vision, “What we see is a
blend of what we are viewing and what we viewed a fraction of a second before”.
The mechanical scanning mechanism, which is performed in the clock when the
motor is turned on, the connected seven LEDs are scanned line by line at a very
fast speed which makes the observer to observe those led display clock.

propeller is a term associated with circular rotating objects. conventional

methods of displaying images are mainly using LCD display and dot-matrix where
a huge number of LED's and power processors are used to create the display. The
main idea of this project is to use minimum number of LED's and components to
create a virtual display with minimum power consumption. For the purpose of
displaying a set of LED's have been used, hence the name Propeller LED display.
The main advantage of propeller displays as compared to the LED matrix board is
its lower power consumption and single array of LED’s was used to produce the
display. Propeller clock uses extremely small LED's for displaying the typescript
and symbols on its assembly in an appropriate way. The main mechanism behind
virtual display is the phenomenon of Persistence of vision (POV). The
phenomenon is related to vision capability of human eye by which an after image
is thought to persist for approximately 1/25th of a second. So, if someone is

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Arduino Nano Propeller LED Analog Clock
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observing the images at a rate of 25 images per second, then they appear to be
continuous. Existing systems do employ POV principle, but for displaying each
pixel, individual LED is used.

This results in a huge number of LEDs even for small sized displays. By using a
propeller type display, LED count can be kept minimum. The LED's are attached to
a rotating board. They turn ON and OFF at very definite and precise time intervals.
All we can see are the lighted dots from the LED's making a readable display that
seems to float [2]. In the project an array of LED's, microcontroller and infrared
receiver are placed on the board and are rotated by a motor at a very high rpm.
The prototyping board itself is used as the propeller to minimize the weight and
parts used for the propeller LED display.

Literature survey

The design and construction of a low-cost propeller LED display by Sheik Rafik
Manihar, Komal Prasad Dewangan, and Ajay Kumar Dansena used principle of
space multiplexing and the propeller display is mechanically scanned and displays
the characters in digital format.

Wireless dual purpose propeller clock display by Nayab Suhail Hamirani, Asad Ali
Shaik, Peer Mohammad Memom and Yasir Ali Khatri used an infrared remote
control for time selecting like switching from analog to digital mode.

Design and implementation of microcontroller-based propeller clock by George

John P, Togis Thomas, Vishnu Balakrishnam, and Vishnu N Nair used principal of
persistence of vision and was implemented using a microcontroller.

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Propeller display based on persistence of vision using RF Arduino uses a wireless

transmission technology and is a real time project.

Block diagram with working explanation

figure 1
The propeller display consists of following blocks as shown in figure 1

as shown in the block diagram

Hardware/software tools used

A hardware description system consists of the following components:

Shift Register

LED Module

DC Motor

Arduino nano

DC power supply

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 Shift register

the shift register has an 8-bit storage register and data is written to the shift
register serially, then latched onto the storage register. The storage register then
controls 8 output lines.

 LED Module

LED module consisting of 7 bright LED is fixed on one side of the PCB board.
These LEDs are connected with each of the port pin of Arduino, with a series
current limiting resistor of 470 ohm. The LEDs are powered by an on-board
battery which is placed on one side of the board.

 DC motor

A brushed DC motor is used to spin the whole circuit assembly which is required
for the continuous vision. The speed should be in the range of 1000rpm to
3000rpm to have a good quality display.

 Arduino nano

First, use the macro USB to connect your Arduino Nano to a computer. All that is
needed to set up the original Arduino Nano is to go onto the Arduino IDE, click
"Tools", then click "board" and select "Arduino Nano". It operates between 1.8-5.5
volts. ATmega328 is chosen mainly because of its reduced weight which helps in
reducing the overall weight of the board. Its small size, low powered and low cost
makes it more appropriate.

 DC power supply

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for the components like Arduino, shift registers, VCC required is 5V DC. But the
power supply available is 230V AC. to convert this 230V AC to 5V DC we use the
combination of bridge rectifier, filter capacitor, and three terminal regulators. this
circuit combination to produce the power supply is called DC power supply.

A software description system consists of the following components:

 Macro USB cable

 Arduino IDE
 Any Computer

 Macro USB cable

Micro USB is a miniaturized version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface
developed for connecting compact and mobile devices. Using this cable, we can
upload code to the Arduino nano.

 Arduino IDE

It is a cross-platform application, that is written in functions from C and C++. It is

used to write and upload programs to Arduino compatible boards, but also, with
the help of 3rd party cores, other vendor development boards.

Working

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The one side of the PCB board the LEDs are connected and the Arduino on the
other side. using a DC motor the whole circuit assembly is rotated and on each
rotation the display is scanned. an on-board battery is placed on one side of the
propeller to power the LEDs and this can also use as a counter balance. the
Arduino is mainly responsible for the fast switching of LEDs. For good visibility the
character height must be a minimum of 30mm height. The characters will appear
as dots and an appropriate font must be used to display the characters.

By allocating a 7×5 matrix for each character, the similar font used on LCD
character displays can be obtained. A blank column is added to create space
between characters. thus all characters will be based on a 7 x 6 matrix which
serves as the building blocks for the display algorithm. the LEDs are mechanically
scanned from left to right and each column is lit up according to the matrix being
displayed. to display the letter ‘A’, its corresponding matrix is passed into the
display algorithm function. the value of each row is assigned to each element of
the LED array after each column.

Using the 7x6 matrices symbols can be easily created. The average current
consumption is 10mA per LED and200mA for the propeller motor. This gives a
total of 270mA for the display as compared to an average of 8820mA for the
conventional LED display with the same pixel count (126x7).

Applications

Application can find their way to cost effective solution for large public displays,
information systems

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It can directly replace railway station information display, bus stand and many
more places

Limitations

Supplying power to moving objects is not a simple task, therefore we have to use
wireless power transmission to control circuit, which is a moving object.

Future enhancement

Real time digital clock can be easily programmed through this.

Though we have tried our best to minimize the cost of project but it can further
be made cost efficient by cost cutting components.

Using 3-D version of this display, a very effective representation of earth’s globe.

It can be integrated with GSM such that any message from end user with a
phone can display the text by merely sending SMS.

References
[1] Coltheart M."The persistence of vision." Philos Trans R SocLond B Biol Sci.
1980 Jul 8; 290(1038):57–69. PMID 6106242

[2] Autonomous Messenger Using Propeller LED Display. Dr. S. venkannah, D. E. B.

Mallet

[3] An Analog & Digital propeller clock I made! By LuberthDijkman

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[4] Bazin, André (1967) What is Cinema? Vol. I, Trans. Hugh Gray, Berkeley:
University of California Press.

Project Coordinator Project Guide

Mr. Rohith Prasanna Ms. Anupama B C
Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE
NIE, Mysuru NIE, Mysuru

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