Clock Three Jr. - What Amp for AC adapter?

[Dman777]

I have a Clock Three Jr. that I have been enjoying all these years. I want to move it to my book shelf and plug it into a wall. I see that the docs state to use a 5v power adapter. Does anyone know what  amp rating to get on the power adapter? Also, I don't know if it matters but I will have to use a usb adapter to power it from the AC plug. 

Thanks,

-Darin

[Nicholas Stock]

A 5V 1 Amp supply is enough. I run mine off a 1A 5V USB power supply with no issues.

(Pharma) Nick.

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[Dman777]

Thanks! The lowest I found is 3A. Would it hurt the clock? Or could it burn up the usb port on the clock?

On Wednesday, November 29, 2017 at 6:34:31 PM UTC-6, Pramanicin wrote:

A 5V 1 Amp supply is enough. I run mine off a 1A 5V USB power supply with no issues.

(Pharma) Nick.

On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 4:28 PM, Dman777 <darin....@gmail.com> wrote:

I have a Clock Three Jr. that I have been enjoying all these years. I want to move it to my book shelf and plug it into a wall. I see that the docs state to use a 5v power adapter. Does anyone know what  amp rating to get on the power adapter? Also, I don't know if it matters but I will have to use a usb adapter to power it from the AC plug. 

Thanks,

-Darin

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[Nicholas Stock]

Won’t hurt. 

Nick

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[Tomasz Kowalczyk]

It won't do any damage. The current rating on a voltage supply is a maximum value. Actual current flowing is determined by the circuit - if it is taking 250mA from 5V, 1A supply, it will still take 250mA from 5V, 3A supply. As long as the supply provides 5V and has rating of at least 250mA, it will be fine.

[Dman777]

I found a Samsung old cell phone AC plug with a usb input. It is 5v with 0.7A output and 240v with 0.15A input. Is the good for the clock? Or would there not be enough amps cause strain on the electronic parts?

Thank you,

-Darin

[gregebert]

You might be cutting it too close unless you've accurately measured the load-current of the clock under all conditions. Some switchmode supplies will overheat if you overload them; others will shut-down or current-limit by reducing the output voltage.

How many tubes is the clock ? If it's 6 tubes drawing less than 5watts (5V/1Amp), then the designer of that clock has done a very good job making it efficient.

[Nicholas Stock]

Greg (and others), the C3Jr is a LED matrix clock that illuminates word strings to tell the time...it's entirely Open Source.

https://github.com/wyolum/ClockTHREEjr

It's an extensible board (you can add multiple boards together to make larger clocks...I have a double sized one on my kitchen wall that tells the time to the minute..). Each board has 8x16 5mm white LED's, so total current draw can be pretty high if all are illuminated at once (there is a test program to do this), but for time keeping sake the maximum number of LED's illuminated never really exceeds 40...at max brightness (assume 20 mA per LED), you're looking at 0.8A. Therefore I wouldn't run this clock with anything under a 1A 5V USB or other supply.

For those around the world, the clock is easily modified to other languages by virtue of the software and we currently have Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, German, Irish, French and a few others in the wild...the bottleneck is laser engraving the different faceplates. Kits for the English version are available at Seeedstudio at a discount at the moment for anyone interested..(I don't make any money on these if you're wondering....just a member of the team that originally came up with the idea).

Cheers,

(Pharma) Nick

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 11:12 PM, gregebert <greg...@hotmail.com> wrote:

You might be cutting it too close unless you've accurately measured the load-current of the clock under all conditions. Some switchmode supplies will overheat if you overload them; others will shut-down or current-limit by reducing the output voltage.

How many tubes is the clock ? If it's 6 tubes drawing less than 5watts (5V/1Amp), then the designer of that clock has done a very good job making it efficient.

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[Dave]

If anyone is interested in making one of these, 

I did a run of the PCBs for my own use have have some extras that I would sell.

Just hit the 'reply privately' option to me if interested.

cheers,

david

[Nicholas Stock]

Dave, may I ask how you tackled the faceplates? PM me if you can.

Thanks.

Nick

Sent from my iPhone

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[Dman777]

Are ya'll talking about re-releasing this clock? If so, could you do a glass version instead of plexi glass? I would be interested in buying another one if so.

Thanks,

-Darin

On Wednesday, November 29, 2017 at 6:28:29 PM UTC-6, Dman777 wrote:

[Nicholas Stock]

Not that I know of. Glass version would be more expensive and not sure what advantage that would give.

Nick

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[Dman777]

I would be will to pay more for a glass version. Plexi glass is really hard to clean and it scratches easy. Mine has hundreds of tiny scratches on it from the people that assembled it and wiped it down. It's not a big deal from far away, but if I manage to keep the clock working 10 years from now the front def. would be worse off. 

 I used to work at a custom art framing store and have a lot of experience with both. The only way to clean plexi is with a special foam and a special cloth. 

Thanks,

-Darin

[jf...@my-deja.com]

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 2:18:41 PM UTC-8, Dman777 wrote:

.... Plexi glass is really hard to clean and it scratches easy. Mine has hundreds of tiny scratches on it from the people that assembled it and wiped it down. It's not a big deal from far away, but if I manage to keep the clock working 10 years from now the front def. would be worse off.

Have you tried fire polishing it?   It worked for me.  For more info, just Google.  As usual, first practice on a piece of scrap plexiglas.

[Nicholas Stock]

You shouldn’t have received a faceplate that was scratched. I would have returned that one (as I have done before). As long as you use a clean lint free cloth and the correct cleaner it’s pretty easy to clean acrylic. Fire polishing can work, but best if you practice a bit first as has already been mentioned.

Nick

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[Dave]

The proper way to clean acrylic is with a plastic polish like Novus.

It comes in 3 versions, labeled 1, 2 or 3, depending on the level of scratch you are trying to remove.

However, you can just use the mildest version, #1, as a cleaner.

On Wednesday, November 29, 2017 at 7:28:29 PM UTC-5, Dman777 wrote:

[Dave]

Nick,

Google rejects a reply privately to you, so here it is:

the answer is to print the words on clear transparencies and mount them behind acrylic or glass.

You can also get a version cut from acrylic from folks like Ponoko, but is it very expensive.

david

[Nicholas Stock]

Odd. Not had that problem before. Anyway...I am currently looking at vinyl transfers, but the standard way WyoLum was doing this was with a laser cutter on painted acrylic. How well do the clear transparencies work and how did you adhere them to the glass/acrylic? Would be interested to see a picture...

Thanks,

Nick

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