I'm carpenter and have a set of nice chisels but I have a few gacked up dull ones that I use for prying and scraping and such. My late friend Jack called these "chisalls" and I adopted the term. I most def recommend dulling the edge on a chisall BTW. A chisel slip is easy to do when you're doing something it's not designed for and can totally ruin your day.
I've had the same problem, clocks on the most dim setting were lighting up the bedroom at night, finally found one on Amazon that had a knob for the dimmer and could be set all the way down to very dim. Might get one of these wood grain things and see how dim it really is in a dark room.
Once upon a time, BigClive had to remove the globe of a fancy "fireworks" LED bulb. He used the hammer of knowledge, but identified it as being his "X-ray machine" !
I suspect that dim display might me adequate in a bedroom. Obviously a light sensor auto-dimming display would be better, but for 8 bucks you get what you get. I couldn't see if there were current limiting resistors. It would be fun to overdrive the LEDs and see how bright it can get.
I noticed that too. They look decently bright when the numbers aren't illuminated. Perhaps they simply cheaped out on the power supply. Would have been interesting to see if the clock would have been brighter in regular operation with another power supply.
11:24 No ultraviolet. Despite claims over the years that some white LEDs are based on UV LEDs, and me doing extensive research to try and find even one example of a UV-based white LED, I have yet to find a single example in the wild. All commercial white LEDs are based on a blue LED of around 450nm. That’s where the light output is highest, and consequently what all the phosphors are designed for. So the entire white LED ecosystem has been built around blue LEDs. True UV LEDs are still comparatively expensive and also much less efficient. Most “UV” LEDs are actually 395nm near-UV, and as you get to shorter wavelengths, the price goes up dramatically, and the efficiency goes down even more.
I do have a cheap LED bicycle light, and some of the blue light leaks througfh the phosphor in the center of the beam. The light that leaks through is a mesmerizing blue-violet that makes fluorescent objects and clothes light up, like blacklight does. Definitely not UV but it's not your standard blue LED, it's probably 405nm pure gallium nitride like blu-ray lasers.
@@atmel9077 Actually it is a standard blue LED. You’d be surprised at how many things fluoresce under 450nm blue light! As I said (and I’m not guessing, I looked it up), the LED phosphor industry is all built around the ~450nm blue LED.
It might still emit a little tiny bit of light that technically falls in the UV spectrum (10 nm - 400 nm). Could be just enough to cause a small amount of fluorescence. You can probably test with anything that responds to a "blacklight".
Have a place that gives me free electronics. Was given 2 of these. One still had the box and packing materials. Can't complain about free. Since I take a lot of stuff apart I can tell you a heat gun helps with stuff like that.
Nope, it would probably gain minimal amount of brightness, but shorten the lifetime if the LEDs, plus the driver might not be capable of supplying much more current. This thing needs more efficient LEDs.
@@mrnmrn1 It needs higher output LEDs, adjusted current limits, a beefier power supply, and probably some ULN2003 drivers between the "clock chip" and the LEDs:) It's dying to be "upgraded" to it's full potential. It's lucky that the LEDs are surface mount on the board, and not embedded in epoxy in the 7-segment mask. It would actually be pretty easy to mod.
I’ve made quite a few digital clocks of various sizes, I’ve made a massive one with a case made from actual wood and an LCD TV diffuser in front of the LED strips I used on it. Also has a real chime from a mantle clock for the hour chime
You can see even in the image from your loupe that it is embossed vinyl and not actual veneer. And the very obvious brightness changes depending on how many LEDs are lit should be more than enough of a hint why it is so dim.
I bought this clock and like a lot. At night, the brightest setting is actually too bright. I use a lower setting. Are you using bright video lights? It's nice that it keeps the time when the AC goes out.
I'd rather see it use a 9V battery for memory then 3 AAA cells in series ---- the series cells are far more likely to leak catastrophically. I have several 30-year-old digital clocks that use 9 V batteries; the batteries are typically good for several years and so far I haven't had one leak (although I wrap them in kitchen cellophane before installing, just in case). One interesting little quirk of my battery memory clocks is that if we lose power for an hour, the clocks will jump ahead about 5 to 10 minutes. We had a 12 hour power outage and the clocks jumped ahead by an entire hour!
@@michaeltempsch5282 , maybe, but at least if the clock jumps ahead a little bit when you have a power failure during the middle of the night it will wake you up slightly earlier and you've got a couple extra minutes to prepare, before leaving for work or getting the kids off to school perhaps, in case the power going out screwed up anything else around the house. It might require rebooting the wifi and the computers and so on....
@@michaeltempsch5282 Exactly. The quartz crystal package is for keeping time when the AC power goes out. They buy the cheapest ones they can get, since they're not expected to run for long ... possibly stuff that failed manufacturer's QC. I have a crummy old microwave that uses only a quartz clock (would it cost more to read the 60 Hz signal?) and loses a couple of minutes every day, a battery wall clock with the accuracy we all expect these days, and a quartz watch that gains 2 seconds/year. "You get what you pay for" has held true for centuries.
Tear-Downs like this are valuable because it shows the next person hacking one of these exactly where all of the Tabs&Clips are located for Spudging, and are excellent archives for Earth: Thanks Fran! The "boot-up" time is slow because the CPU is running at only 32,768 Hz. The Glyptal on the screws is a job for somebody on the assembly line that had only "One Job" .
i think this could be my new clock, i have a modern alarm clock with the self setting or time based on a time signal it also shows room temp. the big issues for me is its too bright as are most modern alarm clocks so the room is to bright to sleep in. i dont need daylight readability gust a dim glow i can check in the dark.
My version of this see through clock has the temperature as well. It also has a setting where it only switches on if you "clap your hands" (I just tap the table). And I set it to dim as it's too bright otherwise. But I really like it, it also blends in perfectly with my night stand.
I'd guess it's dim to not bother you at night, my wife hates any light at all when she sleeps, I've painted over 6 LEDs in the bedroom on things because of it.
Hi, Fran..A heat gun would have helped, to soften the gluebond.. This clock is still hackable..by removing the veneer and puting on some color filter foil ..to ons vavor.. (PAR can foil) Greets from austria
It really saddens me that something like this isn't heavier. Like I'm gonna have to stick my own metal brick weights if I don't want it to fall under its own weight.
If you don't mind an attached cord, you could probably gut the power supply and stick it inside the clock. Afterwards, you can just rewire with a replacement lamp cord.
Just take apart some handsets of old-timey telephones - like I mean actual wired phones made in the 90's - they'd already switched to all plastic assembly, but used to screw in actual lead weights into things to make them feel "substantial". Phone handsets almost universally have a weight in them.
2 місяці тому+13
That delay at power up was definitely NOT intrinsic to micro-controllers. Micro-controllers boot up almost instantly, certainly faster than what a human can perceive. So the delay has to have been programmed in the code.
Maybe the delay is from power supply itself? I have also few processor based clocks from different decades and it's indeed instant boot, even the aliexpress kit._
I have the same model. It cost about $20 from Target a few years ago. I don't know if yours is faulty, or I lucked out, but the one I have does it's job and is quite bright on lowest setting. I think that the wood is bamboo veneer. Many thanks for the strip down. Now I know what makes it tick... Please excuse the totally accidental pun.
I was inspired by these types of clocks. Back when I had space for a CNC router I milled out little waffle like pockets into a block of wood, tediously soldered individual addressable RGB LEDs (should have made a carrier PCB lol) over each waffle pocket. Off it just looked like a block of wood. On, it ran little color patterns. 11/10 recommend doing it.
I saw clocks like this about a year ago in the poundland shops here in the uk. I cant remember the price but it wasn't expensive. I dont like bright clocks in the bedroom.
That wood veneer under the loop is obviously screen printed plastic with a "grain" embossed into the plastic. You can easily see the half toning of the printing. Like most clocks, it looks like the power supply is quite current limited - look how much brighter the colon gets when the digits are flashing and are between flashes
Put a piece of masking tape over the readout on an old clock radio. Then brush lightly for authentic wood grain. It's a lot brighter with just the tape. You can even leave the red lens filter over the readout and it's still bright. Ask me about my time as a pro thumb twiddler when I reverse engineered a stereo and an old color tv and even tried to rewind a fan motor. Do desktops and motherboards now. Almost got stuck for a while there.
This is very well built for the price, it's a shame they used such bad LEDs. It's so nicely built I would be tempted to replace the LEDs to more efficient ones. Slight design issue they haven't applied white silkscreen around the LEDs, maybe it would help gaining ~5% more brightness.
Two jobs ago, we had the " All Access " hammer ....a three pound shop hammer. That, and the " Sonic Sledgehammer" for really serious cases. They cheaped out on that clock some.
When I was in high school, in the early 80s, I had a Panasonic clock radio with the flip style numbers. I always wanted to see one of those taken apart. It was a sturdy thing, took a lot of abuse having the Snooze button pounded or being knocked off the nightstand.
I remember using the clock that had the roll-a-deck style black plastic pieces with white numbers for the hours 1 to 12, and minutes 00 to 59 and the AM and PM pieces back in the 70s. I think it was the late 70s or early 80s that saw digital clocks. And there was a company, I think New England Clock Company that made just millions of not billions of wind up clocks. Everyone had one in their kitchen and some had a wind up alarm and others didn't. Each morning you would come down for breakfast and wind the clock for the day. The roll-a-deck alarm clock fascinated me because to set the alarm you had a switch and it put it into " set alarm time " and you had to turn the wheel and flip the roll-a-deck time to the time you wanted the alarm to be set at, and it had a switch that you switched when you had it at the time you wanted to be the alarm, and then you had to set the current time again. It took a lot of time to set an alarm and you usually didn't change it. But if I remember correctly, I think if the power went out it lost the alarm time. So, it must have had some type of chip that knew what time it was and what Time the alarm was. It must have had some sensor on the panels of the roll-a-deck to know how many panels have flipped from the current time to the alarm time and the current time. It would be interesting to see how those worked They were everywhere in the 70s I don't know what year they were invented But it seemed like they were everywhere The early 80s a lot of people got a digital alarm clock I remember the roll-a-deck clock had a hum to it. There must have been a motor and gears inside
Technology Vonnections has a video on flip clocks - named These digital clocks aren't digital at all. Techmoan has covered them as well, Budget Flip Clock Flip Out, nut dont recall how feep he went. Aldo kust learned that there's a channel named Flipclockfans. No idea of the content tho...
For more display brightness I'd try upping the supply voltage - while looking at the CPU and Multiplex Transistor packages with a Thermal Camera to see if anything even gets warm.
I have a similar-looking clock bought new from ebay. Not sure of the brand. It has adequate brightness but more importantly it has a sound sensor to trigger it. This means that it doesn't light up at all until you make a bit of noise - a clap or a cough - then it lights for a few seconds. I don't think it has a dimmer but the sound trigger means it doesn't light up a bedroom all night.
I used to have a sliding-shutter clock. The display was illuminated by a couple of AG1 style incandescent bulbs. I have yet to see another one like it. That would be a neat clock to breakdown.
@@FranLab That's close! The cams are more like those used in the Lumitime clocks except instead of contacts for individual segment lights, they would move a pair of transparent plastic sheets, each with masking printed on them to block out the unneeded segments. If I recall, this was a Sears brand from mid-70s so it was probably a mechanic proprietary to them. It was the first digital clock I had and it was the neatest thing to watch because the digits morphed like the Lumitime clocks. However, it had only two bulbs, one for the hour, the other for the minutes but they were not enclosed separately, so since the bulb on the minute side was burnt out, the minutes were partially lit by the bulb on the hour side. It was neat because digital clocks at the time were either flip-clocks or loops of numbered tape, both of which were read with ambient light (the neon light was only needed for nighttime). The Sears clock was completely dark, relying on the backlighting to view day or night. Being before LED clocks were developed (or at least known to exist), this was their futuristic take on digital clock displays.
ST micros are dime-a-dozen in China. Most of the kit clocks I've seen are using some variant of the ST micro controllers. I have the colorful clock kit with the color changing LEDs. I was surprised to see it hold time for longer than 6 months and it has a clock skew to keep the time. Notice most devices us wall-warts. Technically the clock does not plug into mains. At it's low current it does not need UL and EU approvals. So buy certified wall-warts and make hundreds of devices without getting them all UL tested.
Nice of them to permanently print 'PM' on there too, because you clearly aren't concerned about AM hours. My first thought on the chip was that it could be an completely integrated clock chip (led driver, time keeping, controls, etc) and not a microcontroller... I suppose it's hard to know these days.
There is a little light above it that will shine during the PM hours. My Capello Bluetooth clock has AM printed instead. Fairly basic this way, but it works! If you see the dot you know it’s AM lol.
Hope you make another video about this watch? Maybe you can modify it? If there is a resistance between the LED and current to the LED, then it does not give the same voltage to the LED under all loads. volts will vary up and down depending on how much mA the LED draws. the same if you have other bad volt regulators which are essentially just a resistor. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Nice clock, and as others stated, not bright because it would be for a bedroom. But did you mistake HK (Hongkong) for UK (United Kingdom) 🤔 And you didn't show where two AA batteries would go, I did not see anything that looked like a battery compartment...
Is it the Capello brand or different name? How much did you pay for it? I suspect that these guts are used in many clocks, with variations in the cost.
Fran, I think you're spot on correct saying that it's built around a micro-controller. The slow turn on could be because the CPU is running at 32 kHz. I pity the workers that have to spend their days build these clocks, not much job satisfaction to be had working in that factory!
Maybe, but if it is an MCU, it’s equally likely that it uses the 32KHz crystal only for the built-in RTC, and clocks the MCU using a built-in RC oscillator.
philboydstudge, there is a good chance that the slow turn-on is due to a crappy wall-wart power supply. It is not a linear type at that size, and some cheapo switching power supplies take quite a while to charge the output capacitor during initial power-up, before it reaches a voltage level adequate for the clock IC to start functioning.
Probably the slow boot time is due to an in software delay. I also put delays in my arduino projects just so the power supply and everything has hopefully stabelised
I have a real wood clock that does exactly that - it uses blue LEDs but is super bright through the actual walnut wood (the clock is an actual block of wood). But - it was a bit more than single digit dollars. Thanks always for informative and entertaining videos!
Perhaps the opaque front panel should have a florescent-chemical layer underneath the fake woodgrain vinyl? The UV coming from the blue LEDs would probably activate it nicely.
How does one manage to make the display too dim with modern LEDs? - most of them are crazy efficient these days. I've been making oversize digital clocks using 40mm LED 'filaments' shining through routed slots in the PCB, and ended up running the segments at 5mA to get a brightness level that was comfortable to look at. (It's something of a compromise, as the paralleled LEDs in the filament strips don't have perfect current sharing, and at very low currents the uneven illumination is obvious & distracting.)
Any videos of your clocks? I made a thermometer using those 40mm filaments, using PCA9624 (IIRC) LED drivers to make it easy to control each segment individually with high-speed PWM, to let me code it so each segment fades to dark, somewhat like incandescent filaments. :p FWIW I haven’t had any trouble with unevenness in the filaments I used. The individual dice within seem to be quite nicely matched.
KarlAdamsAudio, surely you jest! Just select the current limiting resistor(s) and/or LED duty cycle until the desired brightness is achieved. As others have noted, this seemingly too dim display might be just right, or even still a bit too bright, in a dark bedroom.
I’ve had one of these for several years Fran. A black veneer effect and quite easy to see in daylight. It was a birthday present, so never gets used, but I can’t dispose of it or dismantle it!😂 Way too many clocks in the house anyway. I tend to favour the round tricky ones.
One problem with white leds is that the first digit will use some of the segments for only 4 hours every day and more of the rest, so they may look noticeable different after just 1-2 years.
I find it interesting that the display cover (below the faux wood grain panel) had windows for 6 LEDs, besides the numerical segments (for the alarms and PM), despite the board having only 3 LEDs in there places. I wonder what other functions they removed in lowering the price to the bargain bin...
My guess, based on simular clocks, wold be Alarm active indicator, AM/PM indicator Didnt pay too close attention, but if it can dusplay temperature, then likely C/F indicator
I would suppose that the same factory cranks out multiple quality grade versions of the same clock, depeneding on the price point. In my reviews of "retor" AM radios, the Chinese manufactrer used the same case and "dial" design, but the internals varied in quality. One version it was much more of a bluetooth speaker than an FM radio because the radio-on -chip was completely undelective and overloaded even from a transmitter 5 miles away. The (somewhat) higher quality version had really graet radio tunr performance, but thetrade off wahs that it coule burn down your house. They put he power switch AFTER the 120v AC to DC transformer. If it was plugged into the main, the transformer would hum no matter whether the radio was on or off. The cases between both were identicial other then color.
Wonder if you replaced one LED with an expensive brighter one, it would reveal how bright is was supposed to be, and if this was the way they saved significant money.
dhpbear2, since the only real "electronics" in this clock (not counting the wall wart power supply) are on the display PCB, and since the only IC on that PCB is the one next to the crystal, it is pretty clear that the IC is either a microcontroller programmed to function as a clock, OR a monolithic clock IC. In either case, both need to have a crystal to function. A microcontroller might use the crystal as its logical clock, and then derive 'time of day' timing by careful counting of machine cycles OR use of integrated time functionality, whereas a monolithic clock IC does not run a program but is internally hardwired logic, and the crystal just gets divided down until it get slow enough to be seconds. Regardless of which IC type is used, it is apparent that there are too few IC pins to directly drive the LEDs (and speaker and buttons, etc) WITHOUT them being multiplexed.
Would be interesting to see the “wood” under UV light. The UV content of the LEDs has me wondering the they put a fluorescent compound in the front panel.
Even the "15000k white" LEDs to save 0.1 cents, sheesh. But at least at $8 they are charging an amount commensurate with the quality? Seems fair, unlike so much stuff that is built like this but 10x the price.
My Sony Dream clock has 3 brightness settings and I have it on the lowest, so I think the brightness is perfect for bedside. What I hate about this and many other design clocks is they ruin the look with a brand logo. Put the logo on the side, not the face.
really wondering what it would take to mod this into having decent brightness. i guess just swapping out the LEDs probably isn't enough, i'd guess they'd need different voltage or just more amps that would be delivered though the circuits. the PSU should probably be enough if it's a really a USB charger 🤔…?
I recently had a dream my ancient LED clock was just simulating that with an OLED screen and I could watch a movie on it. Interesting silly hack to do someday.
I bet the factory sells the same clock to vendors at a variety of quality levels and price points. That's probably the bottom end. They build the cases the same, then have different levels of quality for the driver board.
I'm carpenter and have a set of nice chisels but I have a few gacked up dull ones that I use for prying and scraping and such. My late friend Jack called these "chisalls" and I adopted the term. I most def recommend dulling the edge on a chisall BTW. A chisel slip is easy to do when you're doing something it's not designed for and can totally ruin your day.
All LED clocks I purchased during the last years turned out to be far too bright. i wonder how they messed this up here in the opposite direction.
They just used LED garbage...
I've had the same problem, clocks on the most dim setting were lighting up the bedroom at night, finally found one on Amazon that had a knob for the dimmer and could be set all the way down to very dim. Might get one of these wood grain things and see how dim it really is in a dark room.
i just put a layer of kapton tape or electricians tape over leds that are too bright
@@drkastenbrot I'll do that for crazy bright power on indicators, but clocks need to look nice.
@@drkastenbrot, parchment paper over the LED's will help diffuse the light. If it's still too bright, use vellum paper.
Once upon a time, BigClive had to remove the globe of a fancy "fireworks" LED bulb. He used the hammer of knowledge, but identified it as being his "X-ray machine" !
It's the vise of knowledge (it squeezes the knowledge out of things) and the hammer is the x-ray machine (because it shows you what's inside)
I suspect that dim display might me adequate in a bedroom. Obviously a light sensor auto-dimming display would be better, but for 8 bucks you get what you get.
I couldn't see if there were current limiting resistors. It would be fun to overdrive the LEDs and see how bright it can get.
Use an hair dryer to warm the goo, this will make it easier to remove, same for labels etc.
That "goo" you are referring to would be contact adhesive of some sort.
The dots in the middle of the numbers goes alot brighter when the numbers flash and are off. I reckon not enough power to drive them all at once
I noticed that too. They look decently bright when the numbers aren't illuminated. Perhaps they simply cheaped out on the power supply. Would have been interesting to see if the clock would have been brighter in regular operation with another power supply.
Or it might be the way the digits are multiplexed ...
@@DarrenBoxhall That is quite common on old multiplex displays.
...Or they stop the multiplexing when only the colon is lit, whichever is worst
Poor engineering imo. They could have used a pwm imo to control brightness better.
11:24 No ultraviolet. Despite claims over the years that some white LEDs are based on UV LEDs, and me doing extensive research to try and find even one example of a UV-based white LED, I have yet to find a single example in the wild. All commercial white LEDs are based on a blue LED of around 450nm. That’s where the light output is highest, and consequently what all the phosphors are designed for. So the entire white LED ecosystem has been built around blue LEDs. True UV LEDs are still comparatively expensive and also much less efficient. Most “UV” LEDs are actually 395nm near-UV, and as you get to shorter wavelengths, the price goes up dramatically, and the efficiency goes down even more.
I do have a cheap LED bicycle light, and some of the blue light leaks througfh the phosphor in the center of the beam. The light that leaks through is a mesmerizing blue-violet that makes fluorescent objects and clothes light up, like blacklight does. Definitely not UV but it's not your standard blue LED, it's probably 405nm pure gallium nitride like blu-ray lasers.
@@atmel9077 Actually it is a standard blue LED. You’d be surprised at how many things fluoresce under 450nm blue light!
As I said (and I’m not guessing, I looked it up), the LED phosphor industry is all built around the ~450nm blue LED.
@@atmel9077 P.S. Blue indicator LEDs are often 460-470nm, not quite as “deep” blue as the 450nm. Still enough to make many things fluoresce.
It might still emit a little tiny bit
of light that technically falls in the UV spectrum (10 nm - 400 nm). Could be just enough to cause a small amount of fluorescence.
You can probably test with anything that responds to a "blacklight".
Have a place that gives me free electronics. Was given 2 of these. One still had the box and packing materials. Can't complain about free.
Since I take a lot of stuff apart I can tell you a heat gun helps with stuff like that.
Do the opposite hack to Big Clive, and increase the LED current.
Nope, it would probably gain minimal amount of brightness, but shorten the lifetime if the LEDs, plus the driver might not be capable of supplying much more current. This thing needs more efficient LEDs.
@@mrnmrn1 It needs higher output LEDs, adjusted current limits, a beefier power supply, and probably some ULN2003 drivers between the "clock chip" and the LEDs:) It's dying to be "upgraded" to it's full potential. It's lucky that the LEDs are surface mount on the board, and not embedded in epoxy in the 7-segment mask. It would actually be pretty easy to mod.
It's perfect for using it in a dark bedroom. Overall it doesn't look disappointing to me, the inside looks quite well made.
I’ve made quite a few digital clocks of various sizes, I’ve made a massive one with a case made from actual wood and an LCD TV diffuser in front of the LED strips I used on it. Also has a real chime from a mantle clock for the hour chime
You need a Spudger, The chisel was scary.
That's what I thought, definitely get a spudger. Or just a table knife. The chisel is brutal.
@@Murgoh exactly.
Everything is a spudger if you’re brave enough.
Or use the hammer with the chisels in the handle. Some come with punches in the handle, but I like the chisels.
Chisels are just higher-tier spudgers
You can see even in the image from your loupe that it is embossed vinyl and not actual veneer. And the very obvious brightness changes depending on how many LEDs are lit should be more than enough of a hint why it is so dim.
Yup, grain should follow the texture, and not be printed with dots. Saw that and said _wait a minute!_
I bought this clock and like a lot. At night, the brightest setting is actually too bright. I use a lower setting. Are you using bright video lights? It's nice that it keeps the time when the AC goes out.
I'd rather see it use a 9V battery for memory then 3 AAA cells in series ---- the series cells are far more likely to leak catastrophically. I have several 30-year-old digital clocks that use 9 V batteries; the batteries are typically good for several years and so far I haven't had one leak (although I wrap them in kitchen cellophane before installing, just in case). One interesting little quirk of my battery memory clocks is that if we lose power for an hour, the clocks will jump ahead about 5 to 10 minutes. We had a 12 hour power outage and the clocks jumped ahead by an entire hour!
My mistake. Mine is a different brand that looks just like this. I like the brand I bought - it's not the one Fran has.
@@goodun2974 Normally clocked by line frequency, and maybe an (not very exact) RC circuit when on battery backup?
@@michaeltempsch5282 , maybe, but at least if the clock jumps ahead a little bit when you have a power failure during the middle of the night it will wake you up slightly earlier and you've got a couple extra minutes to prepare, before leaving for work or getting the kids off to school perhaps, in case the power going out screwed up anything else around the house. It might require rebooting the wifi and the computers and so on....
@@michaeltempsch5282 Exactly. The quartz crystal package is for keeping time when the AC power goes out. They buy the cheapest ones they can get, since they're not expected to run for long ... possibly stuff that failed manufacturer's QC.
I have a crummy old microwave that uses only a quartz clock (would it cost more to read the 60 Hz signal?) and loses a couple of minutes every day, a battery wall clock with the accuracy we all expect these days, and a quartz watch that gains 2 seconds/year. "You get what you pay for" has held true for centuries.
Tear-Downs like this are valuable because it shows the next person hacking one of these exactly where all of the Tabs&Clips are located for Spudging, and are excellent archives for Earth: Thanks Fran!
The "boot-up" time is slow because the CPU is running at only 32,768 Hz.
The Glyptal on the screws is a job for somebody on the assembly line that had only "One Job" .
i think this could be my new clock, i have a modern alarm clock with the self setting or time based on a time signal it also shows room temp. the big issues for me is its too bright as are most modern alarm clocks so the room is to bright to sleep in. i dont need daylight readability gust a dim glow i can check in the dark.
My version of this see through clock has the temperature as well. It also has a setting where it only switches on if you "clap your hands" (I just tap the table). And I set it to dim as it's too bright otherwise. But I really like it, it also blends in perfectly with my night stand.
I'd guess it's dim to not bother you at night, my wife hates any light at all when she sleeps, I've painted over 6 LEDs in the bedroom on things because of it.
Try it in the dark. See what it looks like
That's what I was going to say. I would love to have that as my bedside clock. The one I have right now is mega bright.
Hi, Fran..A heat gun would have helped, to soften the gluebond.. This clock is still hackable..by removing the veneer and puting on some color filter foil ..to ons vavor.. (PAR can foil) Greets from austria
There's definitely something cathartic about eating breakfast while watching cheap electronics being dissected.
Thanks Fran!
It really saddens me that something like this isn't heavier. Like I'm gonna have to stick my own metal brick weights if I don't want it to fall under its own weight.
My digital clock is like that, too. The power cord is always dragging it onto the floor.
If you don't mind an attached cord, you could probably gut the power supply and stick it inside the clock. Afterwards, you can just rewire with a replacement lamp cord.
Just take apart some handsets of old-timey telephones - like I mean actual wired phones made in the 90's - they'd already switched to all plastic assembly, but used to screw in actual lead weights into things to make them feel "substantial". Phone handsets almost universally have a weight in them.
That delay at power up was definitely NOT intrinsic to micro-controllers. Micro-controllers boot up almost instantly, certainly faster than what a human can perceive. So the delay has to have been programmed in the code.
Maybe the delay is from power supply itself? I have also few processor based clocks from different decades and it's indeed instant boot, even the aliexpress kit._
@@DJResR420Could also be the power supply not providing power immediately. Perhaps there are some capacitors in there that need to charge first.
They likely programmed the delay to prevent the display from lighting up before the capacitor is fully charged.
Probably the battery backup keep-alive has a poll rate for startup to save battery.
Thank you for showing us the inside of this Clock, the programmable chip makes the electronics look simple.
The KODA company is in HK meaning Hong Kong. Not in UK as you mentioned in the beginning of the video.
HK= Hong Kong
KK = King Kong
@@louistournas120 KO = me 😄
it's the u-knigHt-ed Kingdom :)
Not very long ago Hong Kong was British.
I have the same model. It cost about $20 from Target a few years ago. I don't know if yours is faulty, or I lucked out, but the one I have does it's job and is quite bright on lowest setting. I think that the wood is bamboo veneer. Many thanks for the strip down. Now I know what makes it tick... Please excuse the totally accidental pun.
4 transistors to multiplex the digits of the display. Nice hobby project to redesign the back board and make the LEDs brighter.
I was inspired by these types of clocks. Back when I had space for a CNC router I milled out little waffle like pockets into a block of wood, tediously soldered individual addressable RGB LEDs (should have made a carrier PCB lol) over each waffle pocket. Off it just looked like a block of wood. On, it ran little color patterns. 11/10 recommend doing it.
I saw clocks like this about a year ago in the poundland shops here in the uk. I cant remember the price but it wasn't expensive. I dont like bright clocks in the bedroom.
That wood veneer under the loop is obviously screen printed plastic with a "grain" embossed into the plastic. You can easily see the half toning of the printing. Like most clocks, it looks like the power supply is quite current limited - look how much brighter the colon gets when the digits are flashing and are between flashes
I've got one that looks like a solid black box, you clap, and the display lights up. It's battery-powered, been on the same set of AAs for 10 years.
I liked the look of the panel. The wooden front was sweet.
Put a piece of masking tape over the readout on an old clock radio. Then brush lightly for authentic wood grain. It's a lot brighter with just the tape. You can even leave the red lens filter over the readout and it's still bright. Ask me about my time as a pro thumb twiddler when I reverse engineered a stereo and an old color tv and even tried to rewind a fan motor. Do desktops and motherboards now. Almost got stuck for a while there.
This is very well built for the price, it's a shame they used such bad LEDs. It's so nicely built I would be tempted to replace the LEDs to more efficient ones. Slight design issue they haven't applied white silkscreen around the LEDs, maybe it would help gaining ~5% more brightness.
Two jobs ago, we had the " All Access " hammer ....a three pound shop hammer. That, and the " Sonic Sledgehammer" for really serious cases.
They cheaped out on that clock some.
When I was in high school, in the early 80s, I had a Panasonic clock radio with the flip style numbers. I always wanted to see one of those taken apart. It was a sturdy thing, took a lot of abuse having the Snooze button pounded or being knocked off the nightstand.
Vice Of Knowledge!!
Or vise. That's what Clive calls it. I was waiting for "one moment please".
I see that you gave the clock a scratch out of frustration (maybe just a mysterious curiosity)but, I’m with you. It’s dim.
I remember using the clock that had the roll-a-deck style black plastic pieces with white numbers for the hours 1 to 12, and minutes 00 to 59 and the AM and PM pieces back in the 70s.
I think it was the late 70s or early 80s that saw digital clocks. And there was a company, I think New England Clock Company that made just millions of not billions of wind up clocks. Everyone had one in their kitchen and some had a wind up alarm and others didn't. Each morning you would come down for breakfast and wind the clock for the day.
The roll-a-deck alarm clock fascinated me because to set the alarm you had a switch and it put it into " set alarm time " and you had to turn the wheel and flip the roll-a-deck time to the time you wanted the alarm to be set at, and it had a switch that you switched when you had it at the time you wanted to be the alarm, and then you had to set the current time again.
It took a lot of time to set an alarm and you usually didn't change it.
But if I remember correctly, I think if the power went out it lost the alarm time.
So, it must have had some type of chip that knew what time it was and what Time the alarm was. It must have had some sensor on the panels of the roll-a-deck to know how many panels have flipped from the current time to the alarm time and the current time.
It would be interesting to see how those worked
They were everywhere in the 70s
I don't know what year they were invented
But it seemed like they were everywhere
The early 80s a lot of people got a digital alarm clock
I remember the roll-a-deck clock had a hum to it. There must have been a motor and gears inside
Technology Vonnections has a video on flip clocks - named These digital clocks aren't digital at all.
Techmoan has covered them as well, Budget Flip Clock Flip Out, nut dont recall how feep he went.
Aldo kust learned that there's a channel named Flipclockfans. No idea of the content tho...
Came here to watch Fran take a chisel to an unsuspecting piece of e-waste. Was not disappointed. 😃
Think you voided your warranty 🤫
I'm guessing the warranty doesn't cover destructive investigation.
This brightness wouldn't be bad for a bedside, you don't want something super bright.
Except sensors and auto-dimming are a thing.
I wish they still made them the way my clock was made. A beautiful cyan VFD with brightness control...and of course its wood grain 😅
For more display brightness I'd try upping the supply voltage - while looking at the CPU and Multiplex Transistor packages with a Thermal Camera to see if anything even gets warm.
I have a similar-looking clock bought new from ebay. Not sure of the brand. It has adequate brightness but more importantly it has a sound sensor to trigger it. This means that it doesn't light up at all until you make a bit of noise - a clap or a cough - then it lights for a few seconds. I don't think it has a dimmer but the sound trigger means it doesn't light up a bedroom all night.
I used to have a sliding-shutter clock. The display was illuminated by a couple of AG1 style incandescent bulbs. I have yet to see another one like it. That would be a neat clock to breakdown.
Like this one? ua-cam.com/video/TANe2d0VTGQ/v-deo.html
@@FranLab That's close! The cams are more like those used in the Lumitime clocks except instead of contacts for individual segment lights, they would move a pair of transparent plastic sheets, each with masking printed on them to block out the unneeded segments.
If I recall, this was a Sears brand from mid-70s so it was probably a mechanic proprietary to them.
It was the first digital clock I had and it was the neatest thing to watch because the digits morphed like the Lumitime clocks. However, it had only two bulbs, one for the hour, the other for the minutes but they were not enclosed separately, so since the bulb on the minute side was burnt out, the minutes were partially lit by the bulb on the hour side.
It was neat because digital clocks at the time were either flip-clocks or loops of numbered tape, both of which were read with ambient light (the neon light was only needed for nighttime). The Sears clock was completely dark, relying on the backlighting to view day or night. Being before LED clocks were developed (or at least known to exist), this was their futuristic take on digital clock displays.
Half of me is horrified that you would buy an item just to destroy it - yet the other half of me is dying to see what's inside it. Thank you. 😃
I also noticed that the display had no capability of 24-hr mode.
Coming soon to a Goodwill near you
I have the same one, but it is brighter. And being replaced by one that looks like wood all the way around.
Clive has the Vise grip of knowledge.
Hi Fran, this is fun to see.
ST micros are dime-a-dozen in China. Most of the kit clocks I've seen are using some variant of the ST micro controllers. I have the colorful clock kit with the color changing LEDs. I was surprised to see it hold time for longer than 6 months and it has a clock skew to keep the time. Notice most devices us wall-warts. Technically the clock does not plug into mains. At it's low current it does not need UL and EU approvals. So buy certified wall-warts and make hundreds of devices without getting them all UL tested.
Nice of them to permanently print 'PM' on there too, because you clearly aren't concerned about AM hours.
My first thought on the chip was that it could be an completely integrated clock chip (led driver, time keeping, controls, etc) and not a microcontroller...
I suppose it's hard to know these days.
There is a little light above it that will shine during the PM hours. My Capello Bluetooth clock has AM printed instead. Fairly basic this way, but it works! If you see the dot you know it’s AM lol.
Hope you make another video about this watch?
Maybe you can modify it?
If there is a resistance between the LED and current to the LED, then it does not give the same voltage to the LED under all loads. volts will vary up and down depending on how much mA the LED draws.
the same if you have other bad volt regulators which are essentially just a resistor.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Nice clock, and as others stated, not bright because it would be for a bedroom.
But did you mistake HK (Hongkong) for UK (United Kingdom) 🤔
And you didn't show where two AA batteries would go, I did not see anything that looked like a battery compartment...
It says AAA on the box and she had her left thumb on the battery cover at 4:00 and opened it a 6:37
I have this clock and it’s quite bright. Wondering if maybe you just got a defective one? Or if they toned the brightness down?
Is it the Capello brand or different name? How much did you pay for it? I suspect that these guts are used in many clocks, with variations in the cost.
In all fairness, it probably kept time okay.
Fran, I think you're spot on correct saying that it's built around a micro-controller. The slow turn on could be because the CPU is running at 32 kHz. I pity the workers that have to spend their days build these clocks, not much job satisfaction to be had working in that factory!
Maybe, but if it is an MCU, it’s equally likely that it uses the 32KHz crystal only for the built-in RTC, and clocks the MCU using a built-in RC oscillator.
philboydstudge, there is a good chance that the slow turn-on is due to a crappy wall-wart power supply. It is not a linear type at that size, and some cheapo switching power supplies take quite a while to charge the output capacitor during initial power-up, before it reaches a voltage level adequate for the clock IC to start functioning.
Probably the slow boot time is due to an in software delay. I also put delays in my arduino projects just so the power supply and everything has hopefully stabelised
I have a real wood clock that does exactly that - it uses blue LEDs but is super bright through the actual walnut wood (the clock is an actual block of wood). But - it was a bit more than single digit dollars. Thanks always for informative and entertaining videos!
Perhaps the opaque front panel should have a florescent-chemical layer underneath the fake woodgrain vinyl? The UV coming from the blue LEDs would probably activate it nicely.
"You want bright led's, you pay extra!!"
I have the same capello brand clock at home (bought a few years ago) and it is not dim like this one. Maybe yours was just defective?
How does one manage to make the display too dim with modern LEDs? - most of them are crazy efficient these days. I've been making oversize digital clocks using 40mm LED 'filaments' shining through routed slots in the PCB, and ended up running the segments at 5mA to get a brightness level that was comfortable to look at. (It's something of a compromise, as the paralleled LEDs in the filament strips don't have perfect current sharing, and at very low currents the uneven illumination is obvious & distracting.)
Any videos of your clocks? I made a thermometer using those 40mm filaments, using PCA9624 (IIRC) LED drivers to make it easy to control each segment individually with high-speed PWM, to let me code it so each segment fades to dark, somewhat like incandescent filaments. :p
FWIW I haven’t had any trouble with unevenness in the filaments I used. The individual dice within seem to be quite nicely matched.
KarlAdamsAudio, surely you jest! Just select the current limiting resistor(s) and/or LED duty cycle until the desired brightness is achieved. As others have noted, this seemingly too dim display might be just right, or even still a bit too bright, in a dark bedroom.
I’ve had one of these for several years Fran. A black veneer effect and quite easy to see in daylight. It was a birthday present, so never gets used, but I can’t dispose of it or dismantle it!😂 Way too many clocks in the house anyway. I tend to favour the round tricky ones.
Maybe the power supply is not powerful enough?
The chisel of curiosity, perhaps? Add it the spudger of speculation? 😊
One problem with white leds is that the first digit will use some of the segments for only 4 hours every day and more of the rest, so they may look noticeable different after just 1-2 years.
We have a lot of these in British discount shops. Nowadays they often have a. Wireless charger pad embedded on the top
15:30 - That white luminaire (!) should have been *black( to add contrast!
wow thats a letdown ._. thank you for doing a video on this
Can you hit the woodgrain backing with a blacklight? I wonder if it's supposed to be fluorescent.
I find it interesting that the display cover (below the faux wood grain panel) had windows for 6 LEDs, besides the numerical segments (for the alarms and PM),
despite the board having only 3 LEDs in there places. I wonder what other functions they removed in lowering the price to the bargain bin...
My guess, based on simular clocks, wold be Alarm active indicator, AM/PM indicator
Didnt pay too close attention, but if it can dusplay temperature, then likely C/F indicator
They should have used yellow LEDs. They could easily have fit two more LEDs per segment.
I would suppose that the same factory cranks out multiple quality grade versions of the same clock, depeneding on the price point. In my reviews of "retor" AM radios, the Chinese manufactrer used the same case and "dial" design, but the internals varied in quality. One version it was much more of a bluetooth speaker than an FM radio because the radio-on -chip was completely undelective and overloaded even from a transmitter 5 miles away. The (somewhat) higher quality version had really graet radio tunr performance, but thetrade off wahs that it coule burn down your house. They put he power switch AFTER the 120v AC to DC transformer. If it was plugged into the main, the transformer would hum no matter whether the radio was on or off. The cases between both were identicial other then color.
Ugh I went through several clocks when I was trying to find a new alarm clock. The ones that looked like that thing were terrible
2:10 Sorry if you cant find the right eyeglasses, but the distributor says : "KODA (HK)" as in "Hong Kong".
Perhaps there is a reason as to why the digits are so dim... I wouldn't want them too bright in the dark when I'm trying to sleep.
Wonder if you replaced one LED with an expensive brighter one,
it would reveal how bright is was supposed to be,
and if this was the way they saved significant money.
Clive's weapon of choice is the 'vice of knowledge.'
This needs to be sent to Big Clive for one of his classic LED hacking jobs.
This must’ve been designed on a napkin at the Starbucks in LAX on a short layover between the distributor in the UK and the factory in China lol.
I'm sorry, but that is OBVIOUSLY not a real wood veneer lol... Its definitely a print
14:20 - I thought most digital clocks digits were multiplexed. (?) Or is it the crystal used instead of a line-frequency reference?
dhpbear2, since the only real "electronics" in this clock (not counting the wall wart power supply) are on the display PCB, and since the only IC on that PCB is the one next to the crystal, it is pretty clear that the IC is either a microcontroller programmed to function as a clock, OR a monolithic clock IC. In either case, both need to have a crystal to function. A microcontroller might use the crystal as its logical clock, and then derive 'time of day' timing by careful counting of machine cycles OR use of integrated time functionality, whereas a monolithic clock IC does not run a program but is internally hardwired logic, and the crystal just gets divided down until it get slow enough to be seconds.
Regardless of which IC type is used, it is apparent that there are too few IC pins to directly drive the LEDs (and speaker and buttons, etc) WITHOUT them being multiplexed.
It's a bedside clock, you'd be the first one to complain that the LEDs were TOO bright to sleep if they were brighter.
Chisel of Discombobulation!
Yes!
The Prybar of Perdition!
Would be interesting to see the “wood” under UV light. The UV content of the LEDs has me wondering the they put a fluorescent compound in the front panel.
Even the "15000k white" LEDs to save 0.1 cents, sheesh. But at least at $8 they are charging an amount commensurate with the quality? Seems fair, unlike so much stuff that is built like this but 10x the price.
My Sony Dream clock has 3 brightness settings and I have it on the lowest, so I think the brightness is perfect for bedside. What I hate about this and many other design clocks is they ruin the look with a brand logo. Put the logo on the side, not the face.
About €5/$5 on aliexpress, different colours of wood and LED available
I thought you were going to find a backlit LCD display behind the wood. At least the didn’t lie the same as TV manufacturers.
The guts would make a good building block for clockifying various translucent objects like lightly silvered bathroom mirrors, lampshades, etc.
really wondering what it would take to mod this into having decent brightness. i guess just swapping out the LEDs probably isn't enough, i'd guess they'd need different voltage or just more amps that would be delivered though the circuits. the PSU should probably be enough if it's a really a USB charger 🤔…?
LGR would love the retro woodgrain clock.
I recently had a dream my ancient LED clock was just simulating that with an OLED screen and I could watch a movie on it. Interesting silly hack to do someday.
I bet the factory sells the same clock to vendors at a variety of quality levels and price points. That's probably the bottom end.
They build the cases the same, then have different levels of quality for the driver board.
It's HK Hong Kong not UK,another enjoyable video
Somehow made the LED's brighter.... higher voltage and/or higher amps.... will last shorter but probably better vissible
Or change-out the LED's?
unfortunately that wood doesn't look like veneer at all, you can see the print dots on the front
Designed in Los Angeles means: Some guy called China and said:"Make me a clock that has faux wood and is digital."
The bots are out of control.
Blue leds uv? --- does front react to black light?