Dmitry Dmitriev’s Arduino-Powered Management Unit Will get Classic Flip-Dot Shows Ticking As soon as Once more

Maker Dmitry Dmitriev has repurposed six classic FOK-GYEM flip-dot shows right into a fully-functional clock, eliminating the normal complexity of handbook voltage polarity management through the use of alternating present and simply the best timing.

“At the start of the venture, we had six flip-dot blocks from a 50-year-old clock that had beforehand been put in on the submit workplace,” Dmitriev explains. “The management unit has not been preserved. Controlling a flip-dot pixel often requires altering the polarity of the enter voltage. With a view to change the polarity over tens of pixels, a posh circuit is required. We tried to simplify this course of through the use of alternating present.”

The concept is, certainly, easy: to drive the classic shows to replace their pixels, that are physically-moving flaps marked in a shiny shade on one facet and black on the opposite, often requires a circuit that may management the polarity of the voltage being despatched. In Dmitriev’s method, that is not required: a normal alternating present (AC) voltage is used as a substitute, with the management system simply timing its personal indicators for when the required polarity is current.

“By turning on the specified blinker, we swap opto-triacs U3-U6, and the polarity of the sign is chosen by one of many opto-relays U1-U2, linked by diodes D3-D4,” the maker explains. “All that continues to be is to use alternating present to the block for one interval and a half-wave of the required polarity will swap the chosen blinkers.”

Whereas the ensuing circuitry required to manage all six shows requires quite a lot of opto-triacs and a cascade of shift registers, the parts are all obtainable at a low value — and a easy Arduino microcontroller is sufficient to drive every little thing and switch the salvaged shows again right into a purposeful clock as soon as extra.

Extra info on the venture is out there on Dmitriev’s Hackaday.io web page, with supply code and schematics revealed to GitHub below the reciprocal GNU Common Public License 3.