01
Soldering × infinity
The wiring was unpredictable. I soldered, resoldered (hated every second of it hahahaha). The man eventually came to the rescue and confirmed the problem was, in fact, my soldering and I knew it!
01 / completed
Matrix
Clock
- date
- July 10, 2026
- made with
- LED matrices, Arduino, solder, Fusion 360, 3D printing
- final animation
- a cat chasing a fish
Made an LED matrix clock because we needed a clock at home and why not make it instead of buying one.
build log / actual evidence
A small archive of
trial, error, repeat.
02New display,
New display,
new hope
I replaced the individual displays with integrated ones, soldered again, and—against the narrative established so far—it worked. I was very happy and only slightly suspicious.
03
Display auditions
Several numbers, symbols, orientations, and tiny identity crises appeared before the clock decided what it wanted to be.
04
Animation auditions
The snake looked meh. The dog looked stupid. After several tries, I settled on a cat chasing a fish. Finally, a cast with chemistry.
05
Giving it a body
Modeled the enclosure in Fusion 360 (took way too long) & generated the support trees (hated the support trees—they gave me goosebumps). The printer was so loud that I woke up at 4 a.m. to stop it.
06
The missing hole
I forgot the cutout for the Arduino barrel-jack connector, improvised the opening, found more issues—obviously—and reprinted the enclosure for the nth time.