Build alarm clock

Google choose to ignore general practice. Now you want the rest of the world to go along with that? If so ,expect to be ignored by lots of people,because I for one do not respond to a message without context.

open your alarm clock and note the chip that's used. google for "specification+[CHIP-NUMBER]" download the PDF and find the alarm pin.

AIUI there's a pin a pin that goes high for an hour or until interrupted (by snooze or alarm inputs) and also goes high on a signal from the sleep input.

there's another pin with open-collector output that produses the audio sognal when the alarm is soundin.

Bye. Jasen

he's right, they typically don't have one.

Anyone here remember "Conker's Bad Fur Day?" This cracked me up.

Just in case the rest of you share John's suspicion that I'm a usenet troll trying to make a buck off of some poor high school student, I want to clarify that people give me lots of money to -give- free electronics stuff out to kids to help them get started in electronics.

Well, I guess it's not lots of money, but it's more than I get paid, so it looks like a lot to me.

--- One of the reasons is because of "context". That is, if you don't leave a little of the previous message in your reply, then there's no way to determine to what/whom you're replying and the recipients of the post then have to call up and backtrack through the header to get the message ID of what you're replying to and then display that message. Extremely inconvenient and extremely inconsiderate of you and, it seems, most Google posters.

Another reason is that your "Google community" seems to be made up largely of clueless newbies who wouldn't know what a newsreader, or netiquette, was if it bit them on the ass.

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--- It's not a question of a newsreader's capabilities, it's a question of a poster's inconsiderateness.

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--- Nonsense. It's all in the economics of the thing. A $2 microcontroller is $2, but 100 components at a penny apiece is $1. Assemble it in China, sell it to Wal-Mart for less than anyone else can and there's your answer.

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--- I really don't think that's what he wants to do, based upon his description of his capabilities, but perhaps Google somehow changes the meanings of posts?

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--- I see. Here's this poor OP, who can't even figure out how to trigger a timer from the radio's buzzer/speaker, and you're suggesting that he jump right into building a design of yours from scratch? And then send glowing testimonials? ISTM that your interests lie more with helping yourself out than the OP.

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--- Geez, I think all he asked for was a simple way to do what he wanted, not a chance to go global with your crap...

It's pretty easy; a comparator on the speaker to SET an RS latch, the latch taking a 555 timer out of reset and allowing it to run as an astable at a 1Hz rate, two BCD counters used to count the 555's output up to 99 seconds, two BCD to seven-segment decoders, two seven-segment LED numeric displays, and 14 resistors for the display. If he can't use the radio's ALARM OFF button to RESET the latch, then an external switch. Also, perhaps another switch to reset the display if it gets to be inconvenient to do it with multiple press-release cycles of the RESET switch.

-- John Fields Professional Circuit Designer

I think that's going to be largely up to you.

(in an effort to keep my disagreement with John off of the thread)

.=2E.

You make an excellent point about ethics. And in your defense, you may not have seen all of the details because of my inconsiderate posting habits.

However, the code is already written, debugged, and burned onto chips, which will be handed out to students on request. There is a powerpoint slideshow and a handout explaining how it all works, and all of the information will be placed on the web for anyone who cares to download it and compile the source. The only special favor I offered was to add a simple feature to the code.

So the work has already been done. I was just giving Jeffrey a heads up on some research material that will be in the public domain as soon as I finish proofreading it. So I don't see any ethical problems with it. He could spend the money on a development kit, buy his own chips, and do all of this himself, but the work involved would be more of an obstacle than a learning experience. It's also a little less practical for him right now since he is unfamiliar with the hardware and pressed for time.

Had all of this happened a couple of weeks from now, he could very well have seen it on the web and emailed me to request a chip anyway.

If Jeffrey is investigating the waking habits of students, his project is more biological or psychological than electrical in subject matter. He's looking for a tool to help him complete his research, not someone to do the project for him. I don't expect him to smelt the iron and forge his own typewriter so he can write the report.

----------------------------------------------------------- Reply from stickyfox, which he emailed instead of posting here:

There is no well-defined experiment, there is no justification for such an experiment, and Jeffrey can't understand 90% of what you write. That kid's electronics knowledge consists of putting a new battery in his toothbrush. Hopefully he'll sucker you into sending him that whatever-it-is you have, and shove it under his bed. If Jeffrey wants to do an electronics project, then RS sells excellent Mims kits for him to rig up, write up, and demonstrate any number of interesting projects, quickly and with comprehension. Jeffrey is not interested in electronics, to him electronics is just cheap packaged items at a store counter, he is interested in other things.

Yes, I agree, and that's why I wrote a PIC program to do all the clock functions; time display, alarm, snooze, external load control, daylight saving time adjustment, and other features using a PIC16f628 for a cost of about $3

Schematic and program are here:

-Bill

Sharp looking page, too.