Ambient Lighting Clock

3D model and ESP8266 code for a clock that projects colorful rays of light against the wall:

• Hours: Wide red
• Minutes: Blueish green
• Seconds: Blue

Enclosure

The directory case contains the OpenSCAD project and rendered STL file of the clock's enclosure.

The enclosure is designed to be 3D-printed, and fits an 60x WS2812 LEDs strip with 144 LEDs per meter, such as this one (AliExpress link)

The enclosure also contains mounting holes to which a front plate can be attached (such as in the photo above).

ESP8266

At the heart of the clock sits an ESP8266, which connects to a WiFi network and fetches the current time of day via NTP.

To build the code and program the ESP, you need to install the PlatformIO framework.

$ git clone https://git.kabelsalat.ch/s3lph/ambient-lighting-clock.git
$ cd ambient-lighting-clock/esp
$ vim src/main.cpp  # Insert the WiFi SSID and PSK
$ pio run  # To download dependencies and build without programming the ESP
Processing main (platform: espressif8266; board: nodemcu; framework: arduino)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Verbose mode can be enabled via `-v, --verbose` option
CONFIGURATION: https://docs.platformio.org/page/boards/espressif8266/nodemcu.html
PLATFORM: Espressif 8266 (2023.4.0) > NodeMCU 0.9 (ESP-12 Module)
HARDWARE: ESP8266 80MHz, 80KB RAM, 4MB Flash
PACKAGES:
 - framework-arduinoespressif8266 @ 2.7.4+9
 - tool-esptoolpy @ 1.40501.0 (4.5.1)
 - toolchain-xtensa @ 2.40802.200502 (4.8.2)
LDF: Library Dependency Finder -> https://bit.ly/configure-pio-ldf
LDF Modes: Finder ~ chain, Compatibility ~ soft
Found 31 compatible libraries
Scanning dependencies...
Dependency Graph
|-- Adafruit NeoPixel @ 1.11.0
|-- NTP @ 1.6.0
|-- ESP8266WiFi @ 1.0
Building in release mode
Retrieving maximum program size .pio/build/main/firmware.elf
Checking size .pio/build/main/firmware.elf
Advanced Memory Usage is available via "PlatformIO Home > Project Inspect"
RAM:   [====      ]  35.4% (used 28984 bytes from 81920 bytes)
Flash: [===       ]  26.8% (used 279396 bytes from 1044464 bytes)
==================================================== [SUCCESS] Took 1.58 seconds ====================================================
$ pio run -t upload  # To build the code and program it to the ESP8266
Configuring upload protocol...
AVAILABLE: espota, esptool
CURRENT: upload_protocol = esptool
Looking for upload port...
Auto-detected: /dev/ttyUSB0
Uploading .pio/build/main/firmware.bin
esptool.py v4.6-dev
Serial port /dev/ttyUSB0
Connecting....
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
Crystal is 26MHz
MAC: 2c:3a:e8:01:23:45
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Configuring flash size...
Flash will be erased from 0x00000000 to 0x00045fff...
Compressed 283552 bytes to 208462...
Writing at 0x00000000... (7 %)
Writing at 0x00005b34... (15 %)
Writing at 0x0000b2c4... (23 %)
Writing at 0x00010670... (30 %)
Writing at 0x00015f2e... (38 %)
Writing at 0x0001b0d0... (46 %)
Writing at 0x000200a6... (53 %)
Writing at 0x0002523e... (61 %)
Writing at 0x0002a761... (69 %)
Writing at 0x0002fcd8... (76 %)
Writing at 0x00035551... (84 %)
Writing at 0x0003ac1f... (92 %)
Writing at 0x00041169... (100 %)
Wrote 283552 bytes (208462 compressed) at 0x00000000 in 18.3 seconds (effective 124.1 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.

Leaving...
Hard resetting via RTS pin...
=================================================== [SUCCESS] Took 23.76 seconds ====================================================