My Ping Pong LED Clock

Ping pong ball diffusers on LED strips to form a digital clock/fancy display!

I followed the build instructions from here https://www.instructables.com/Ping-Pong-Ball-LED-Clock/. My own take on building my animations is described in this blog post.

Whole software fits on an Arduino (ATmega328P) Nano. Sketch compiles (without scrolling text support) to:

• Sketch uses 10236 bytes (33%) of program storage space. Maximum is 30720 bytes.
• Global variables use 1807 bytes (88%) of dynamic memory, leaving 241 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 2048 bytes.

The following foreground and background modes can be mixed and matched!

Foreground Modes:

• T: Single colour time mode
• R: Scrolling rainbow time mode
• N: No time
• C: Cycle through all digits 0--9999 quickly
• is_slanted: Option to use slanted digits or original digits (from https://www.instructables.com/Ping-Pong-Ball-LED-Clock/)

Background Animation Modes:

• R: Scrolling rainbow background
• B: No background
• T: Twinkle
• F: Fireworks
• W: Thunderstorm
• H: Firepit (works well with single colour time mode set to a light teal)

Future Improvements:

• Use a hardware RTC rather than use software
• Implement scolling text (https://github.com/PlanetaryMotion/pingPongBallClock)
• Use FastLED colour palettes
• Attach light sensor and auto-adjust FastLED brightness
• Attach PIR motion sensor and turn on display when there is someone to look at it
• Attach temperature/humidity/pressure sensor and display stats
• Connect to Wifi (e.g. using an ESP32) for real time stats/remote control