BPI inside

As I've already hinted on in the past weeks I've tackled and completed one of my planned mini-projects.

I assembled the Ice Tube Clock from Adafruit Industries:

From Building Ice Tube Clock

This kit has been on my list for some time now, I stumbled over it on the internet two or three years ago and since that time I regularly checked if it was still available. After I finished my university degree the time was due and I ordered it the instant when there was one available at one of the distributors. When it arrived a few weeks later I prepared my soldering stuff and equipment and built it during two nights. As my last soldering has been already quite some while I decided to practice a bit with the [Pi Cobbler][5] which also arrived with the same order.

From Building Ice Tube Clock

When I was comfortable with soldering again it was time to unpack the parts of the clock and check if everything was complete according to the parts list.

From Building Ice Tube Clock

The soldering and building of the clock was pretty straightforward and easy. I carefully read the [build instructions][6] and had no trouble with the bending, soldering and checking the intermediate results. So here are just a few impressions from the build process. I also tried the suggestion to cut the wires of the VFD tube in different lengths, every wire a bit shorter than the preceeding one, before trying to thread them into the connector PCB. I think that this really helped a lot and made it much easier to finish.

From Building Ice Tube Clock

The last final steps could be completed similar to the previous ones. I only had some slight difficulties with the casing because I initially did not recognize the seperate page for the enclosure-assembling on the webpage but puzzled around a bit and eventually built it correctly without instructions. Manuals are for wimps ;)

From Building Ice Tube Clock

Setting the time and date finished off this neat project. Nice :)

A few mini-statistics:

• 6h effort in two nights
• 43 parts assembled
• 1.5m solder needed
• 1 solder-accident (although easy to fix)

Some possible improvements are still possible. Although I ordered the kit from a distributor in Italy it still contained only an american 9VDC power adapter. In my opinion shippings within Europe could already contain a proper european power adapter to spare the need for a US/EUR converter. Furthermore the assembly instructions on the webpage do not reflect the process 100% accurately but seems a slight bit outdated. For example there has been a change on the layout of the PCB as the capacitors C5 and C6 have a slightly different placement on the board than on the images in the solder instructions. Also the screws and nuts are not made of metal but of black nylon.

In the end I enjoyed this mini-project very much. It's comparable to the experience I had some time ago during finishing my Master thesis, where I had to code some stuff and had the feeling that I missed real deep code-writing at work. I also missed tinkering with stuff and crafting small things. Since finishing the clock I did also some mods for my mother. Enhancing an electronic candle which ran on a single CR 2032 for ~5 days to use two AA's instead, running now the second week on the first cheap pair of batteries and still pretty bright.

Currently I'm already planning my next electronics project. This time I will not take a kit which can be assembled by following instructions. Instead it will be something where I will have to deal with electronics, ICs and integration with my Raspberry Pi. And it will be not something which is build after instructions but will be designed by myself.

But more on that in a later post...