20 November, 2022

W8BH clock with EU option

The TFT GPS clock with touch control which has been designed by Bruce E. Hall, W8BH, is a very nice clock with a large and easily readable 3.2" color display. Its three different screens have been nicely laid out and designed also. The processor is an STM32 Blue Pill.

I cloned the software and modified it in two simple ways:

1. EU option

This is a backwards compatible version which can be Europeanized with formats for date and units. It also has possibility for removing the display of the battery icon, when running from a USB supply.

New boolean variables to set:

  • US_UNITS - if false: m, kmh, Little-endian date with '.', if true: feet, mph, Middle-Endian date with '/'
  • BATTERY_DISPLAY - true: as original code, false: no display of battery icon and status

03 November, 2022

Planet positions for the Multi Face GPS Clock

Another update, this time to add:

  • Azimuth and elevation for inner and outer planets relative to your present location. The inner planet screen shows Venus and Mercury and alternates also every 10 seconds between showing the position of the sun and the moon. The % illumination is also shown along with an estimate of apparent magnitude
  • The combined local time and UTC display now has an option to show ISO week number, defined to start on Mondays. (It is my understanding that the week number in the US is different, as Sunday is the first day of the week)
  • A new calendar screen now shows Gregorian (western), Julian (eastern) as well as Islamic and Jewish dates. The calculation of the Jewish calendar is tough for the Arduino Mega and takes some 5-6 seconds
  • A screen showing GPS Info has also been included. This screen shows the number of satellites in view (line 0), the number of satellites in use for position fix and their average signal to noise ratio (line 1), the mode and status indicators (line 2), and the Horizontal Dilution of Precision, Hdop, and its characterization in plain text (line 3).