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Zen Alarm clock

D

dave

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'd like to make my own Zen alarm clock. Is there a clock chip out there I can
use to to the clock and display part? Also, (as I'm not an electronic wozrad by
any means), how can I get the actual sound of the chimes stored - a memory chip
that's "easy" for me to wire up? I can get the sound itself of the chimes ok in
a wav/mp3 etc file on disc - it's just the tough bit (for me) to get it into a
working alamrm clock somehow.

Thanks for any help (the more detailed the better :) )

ps I know I can buy one of these things - but I'd like to try and make one for
the fun of it!
 
W

Wayne

Jan 1, 1970
0
dave said:
I'd like to make my own Zen alarm clock. Is there a clock chip out there I can
use to to the clock and display part? Also, (as I'm not an electronic wozrad by
any means), how can I get the actual sound of the chimes stored - a memory chip
that's "easy" for me to wire up? I can get the sound itself of the chimes ok in
a wav/mp3 etc file on disc - it's just the tough bit (for me) to get it into a
working alamrm clock somehow.

Thanks for any help (the more detailed the better :) )

ps I know I can buy one of these things - but I'd like to try and make one for
the fun of it!

http://pdfserv.maxim-ic.com/en/an/AN2361.pdf

I do not know about the wav/mp3 deal. You would be better off with
mp3's because of the compression ratio compared to wav files. Still,
depending on what you wanted to do, you would require external NVRAM as
an interface to store your sounds. Are you looking for simple tones or
are you actually looking to play music? I would imagine that simple
tone beeps could be stored in the internal memory of the RTC.
 
M

Michael Black

Jan 1, 1970
0
dave said:
I'd like to make my own Zen alarm clock. Is there a clock chip out there I can
use to to the clock and display part? Also, (as I'm not an electronic wozrad by
any means), how can I get the actual sound of the chimes stored - a memory chip
that's "easy" for me to wire up? I can get the sound itself of the chimes ok in
a wav/mp3 etc file on disc - it's just the tough bit (for me) to get it into a
working alamrm clock somehow.

Thanks for any help (the more detailed the better :) )

ps I know I can buy one of these things - but I'd like to try and make one for
the fun of it!

But what's the issue? Find an old clock radio, find the datasheet for the
clock IC, and one of the pins will go on when the alarm is set to go off.
You then use that to control whatever, to get whatever sound you want.

Find an old enough clock, like say 25 years old, and you may find inside
two boards, one the clock board and the other the radio board. That's
even easier, because there will only be two or three lines between the
two boards, and figuring out which one is the needed one can be
determined without a datasheet.

Later clock radios have everything on the same board, and that makes
it harder to trace for the novice.

Another possibility is an LCD alarm clock, and figure out a means of
deriving a trigger from the audio signal going to the piezoelectric
"speaker". (The speaker will be fairly obvious, so that part is
solved.)

Michael
 
D

Don Bruder

Jan 1, 1970
0
But what's the issue? Find an old clock radio, find the datasheet for the
clock IC, and one of the pins will go on when the alarm is set to go off.
You then use that to control whatever, to get whatever sound you want.

Find an old enough clock, like say 25 years old, and you may find inside
two boards, one the clock board and the other the radio board. That's
even easier, because there will only be two or three lines between the
two boards, and figuring out which one is the needed one can be
determined without a datasheet.

Later clock radios have everything on the same board, and that makes
it harder to trace for the novice.

Another possibility is an LCD alarm clock, and figure out a means of
deriving a trigger from the audio signal going to the piezoelectric
"speaker".

Methinks the words "Schmidtt(sp?) Trigger" and "S/R flip-flop" would
likely be a "helpful hint" here :)
 
J

John O'Flaherty

Jan 1, 1970
0
dave said:
I'd like to make my own Zen alarm clock.

? Does it hit you with a stick if you don't come to full awareness at
once?
 
H

Homer J Simpson

Jan 1, 1970
0
John O'Flaherty said:
? Does it hit you with a stick if you don't come to full awareness at
once?

Just goes tick - never goes tock.
 
S

SDC

Jan 1, 1970
0
dave said:
I'd like to make my own Zen alarm clock. Is there a clock chip out there I can
use to to the clock and display part? Also, (as I'm not an electronic wozrad by
any means), how can I get the actual sound of the chimes stored - a memory chip
that's "easy" for me to wire up? I can get the sound itself of the chimes ok in
a wav/mp3 etc file on disc - it's just the tough bit (for me) to get it into a
working alamrm clock somehow.

Thanks for any help (the more detailed the better :) )

ps I know I can buy one of these things - but I'd like to try and make one for
the fun of it!

What the f... is a "Zen" alarm clock? (I understand "Alarm Clock", but
where does the "Zen" come into it?)
It sounds like this project may be beyond you, if you want to design it
from the ground up. If you want good quality HI-FI sound, then the wav/mp3
decoding will require a microcontroller at the very least. Even for single
tones, you'll need memory, timing for each note, an A-D converter and a
power amp. Again, pretty hard without a microcontroller.
To do it by hacking existing equipment, you need an alarm clock,
interface circuitry as mentioned by other posters to detect the alarm, then
a player of some sort. (e.g. Have the alarm trigger the "Play" button of an
existing MP3/wav player.)

Good luck, I'd like to know how you go.

.... Steve
 
S

SDC

Jan 1, 1970
0
SDC said:
I memory chimes
ok in one

What the f... is a "Zen" alarm clock? (I understand "Alarm Clock", but
where does the "Zen" come into it?)
It sounds like this project may be beyond you, if you want to design it
from the ground up. If you want good quality HI-FI sound, then the wav/mp3
decoding will require a microcontroller at the very least. Even for single
tones, you'll need memory, timing for each note, an A-D converter and a
power amp. Again, pretty hard without a microcontroller.
To do it by hacking existing equipment, you need an alarm clock,
interface circuitry as mentioned by other posters to detect the alarm, then
a player of some sort. (e.g. Have the alarm trigger the "Play" button of an
existing MP3/wav player.)

Good luck, I'd like to know how you go.

... Steve

Sorry, where I wrote A-D converter, I meant D-A converter, (Digital to
Analogue).

.... Steve
 
D

dave

Jan 1, 1970
0

If you don't know what it is - how can you say it's beyond me? I used the term
thinking (mistakenly) that this NG had the intelligence to know what I was
saying without explaination (as some do indeed seem to have done - and thanks to
those for the actual tech. suggestions). The term has been used on several net
sites (but not by me) - to describe such clocks. Let me explain what you don;t
seem to know about. The ratio of the chimes timing is calculated according to
the so called "golden ratio", (I'm sure you know what that is), as used in
geometry. Some people need 120db of GONGGGGGGGGGGGGG to wake them up. I am not
one of them! Hence this clock is useful. I WILL make one and it WILL work. I
just hoped for a little help getting started. No matter. Thanks anyway.

ps I am not some kind of wierd monk carrying flowers.
 
K

Kit

Jan 1, 1970
0
dave said:
If you don't know what it is - how can you say it's beyond me? I used the term
thinking (mistakenly) that this NG had the intelligence to know what I was
saying without explaination (as some do indeed seem to have done - and thanks to
those for the actual tech. suggestions). The term has been used on several net
sites (but not by me) - to describe such clocks. Let me explain what you don;t
seem to know about. The ratio of the chimes timing is calculated according to
the so called "golden ratio", (I'm sure you know what that is), as used in
geometry. Some people need 120db of GONGGGGGGGGGGGGG to wake them up. I am not
one of them! Hence this clock is useful. I WILL make one and it WILL work. I
just hoped for a little help getting started. No matter. Thanks anyway.

ps I am not some kind of wierd monk carrying flowers.

Sparkfun (www.sparkfun.com) has some mp3 decoder chips and boards, that
might work.
 
D

Donkey D...

Jan 1, 1970
0
dave said:
If you don't know what it is - how can you say it's beyond me? I used the term
thinking (mistakenly) that this NG had the intelligence to know what I was
saying without explaination (as some do indeed seem to have done - and thanks to
those for the actual tech. suggestions). The term has been used on several net
sites (but not by me) - to describe such clocks. Let me explain what you don;t
seem to know about. The ratio of the chimes timing is calculated according to
the so called "golden ratio", (I'm sure you know what that is), as used in
geometry. Some people need 120db of GONGGGGGGGGGGGGG to wake them up. I am not
one of them! Hence this clock is useful. I WILL make one and it WILL work. I
just hoped for a little help getting started. No matter. Thanks anyway.

ps I am not some kind of wierd monk carrying flowers.

You, my friend are nothing but a rude, arrogant prick. Steve made perfectly
reasonable comments, but you chose to be an arsehole in return. You'll go
far in life.
.... Donkey
 
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