Retro Designed Graphical LCD Alarm Clock

Overview

The project integrates an old wooden box and an electronic alarm clock with graphical LCD to create a modern and retro taste of a clock to make it more attractive.

Details

An ATmega32 microcontroller is used to control the clock while the standard 128x64 GLCD is used to display the time, date, and alarm. The GLCD contains blue and white display. Some intelligence was imposed on its backlight wherein the backlight is turned ON by determining the value of photocell. A simple menu is used to managed the settings of the clock where the time, date, alarm clock, and backlight can be set along with the “about this clock” info. The alarm time, photocell trigger value, and backlight ON and OFF hour, are saved by the EEPROM in the microcontroller. These values can be pulled out in case of power lost. This helps the user not to set the values again.

Using the WinAVR distribution of the GNU GCC compiler, the software was written in C. in the schematic, the 13 pin header holds the audio output. The audio buzzer used has an off-board NPN transistor to increase the current of the buzzer.