Zen Alarm clock

I do not know about the wav/mp3 deal. You would be better off with mp3's because of the compression ratio compared to wav files. Still, depending on what you wanted to do, you would require external NVRAM as an interface to store your sounds. Are you looking for simple tones or are you actually looking to play music? I would imagine that simple tone beeps could be stored in the internal memory of the RTC.

But what's the issue? Find an old clock radio, find the datasheet for the clock IC, and one of the pins will go on when the alarm is set to go off. You then use that to control whatever, to get whatever sound you want.

Find an old enough clock, like say 25 years old, and you may find inside two boards, one the clock board and the other the radio board. That's even easier, because there will only be two or three lines between the two boards, and figuring out which one is the needed one can be determined without a datasheet.

Later clock radios have everything on the same board, and that makes it harder to trace for the novice.

Another possibility is an LCD alarm clock, and figure out a means of deriving a trigger from the audio signal going to the piezoelectric "speaker". (The speaker will be fairly obvious, so that part is solved.)

Michael

Methinks the words "Schmidtt(sp?) Trigger" and "S/R flip-flop" would likely be a "helpful hint" here :)

? Does it hit you with a stick if you don't come to full awareness at once?

-- John

Just goes tick - never goes tock.

can

wozrad by

chip

ok in

into a

for

What the f... is a "Zen" alarm clock? (I understand "Alarm Clock", but where does the "Zen" come into it?) It sounds like this project may be beyond you, if you want to design it from the ground up. If you want good quality HI-FI sound, then the wav/mp3 decoding will require a microcontroller at the very least. Even for single tones, you'll need memory, timing for each note, an A-D converter and a power amp. Again, pretty hard without a microcontroller. To do it by hacking existing equipment, you need an alarm clock, interface circuitry as mentioned by other posters to detect the alarm, then a player of some sort. (e.g. Have the alarm trigger the "Play" button of an existing MP3/wav player.)

Good luck, I'd like to know how you go.

... Steve

memory

chimes

one

it

then

an

Sorry, where I wrote A-D converter, I meant D-A converter, (Digital to Analogue).

... Steve

and the alarm:

is the sound of one hand clapping.

If you don't know what it is - how can you say it's beyond me? I used the term thinking (mistakenly) that this NG had the intelligence to know what I was saying without explaination (as some do indeed seem to have done - and thanks to those for the actual tech. suggestions). The term has been used on several net sites (but not by me) - to describe such clocks. Let me explain what you don;t seem to know about. The ratio of the chimes timing is calculated according to the so called "golden ratio", (I'm sure you know what that is), as used in geometry. Some people need 120db of GONGGGGGGGGGGGGG to wake them up. I am not one of them! Hence this clock is useful. I WILL make one and it WILL work. I just hoped for a little help getting started. No matter. Thanks anyway.

ps I am not some kind of wierd monk carrying flowers.

to

Sparkfun

Or a bear farting in the woods!

there

it

make

but

design

term

thanks to

several net

don;t

to

not

You, my friend are nothing but a rude, arrogant prick. Steve made perfectly reasonable comments, but you chose to be an arsehole in return. You'll go far in life. ... Donkey