Tag Archives: Wrist watch


ChronodeVFD: A wearable wrist watch with vacuum fluorescent display

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Vacuum Fluorescent Displays (VFD) are usually considered bulky, and are, therefore, mostly found in non-portable consumer-electronics gadgets such as DVD players, automobile audio system, and electric ranges. Johngineer’s ChronodeVFD is an exception to that. He used them to construct a wearable wrist watch. The ChronodeVFD uses the IVL2-7/5 VFD display tube controlled by the Maxim MAX6920 chip, which is a 12-bit output, 76V, vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) tube driver.

The core of the project is the ATMega88 microcontroller and the DS3231 RTC chip. His design also includes an analog light sensor, a BMP180 barometric/temperature sensor and a MMA8653 accelerometer. The finished watch is powered by one AA alkaline battery, which lasts for 6-10 hours.

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ChronodeVFD wrist watch

ChronosMega: Another LED wrist watch

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Designed by Nick, a BSEE student at Oakland University, ChronosMega is an Atmega328-based wrist watch that is battery-powered (3.7V rechargeable Li-Ion) and displays time (hours and minutes) in binary format using 10 LEDs. The LEDs  are arranged in a special circular pattern, where the four LEDs in upper half circle displays hours and the remaining six LEDs in the lower half circle display minute. The watch also contains an USB charger onboard, which uses Microchip’s MCP73831 charge management controller IC. There are four tact switches for user interface that controls the time setting, display, and sleep mode operation. Time keeping is performed using the 8-bit Timer2 module of Atmega328, which is programmed to count 10th of a second asynchronously from the system. For precise Timer2 operation, a 32.768 kHz crystal is used for the XTAL pins of Atmega328.

ChronosMega: LED wrist watch

ChronosMega: A DIY LED wrist watch