What?

I salvaged the LED display from an old DVD/VCR and repurposed it for a digital clock. It's programmed with an Metro Mini microcontroller in Arduino, and the code is posted on the Github link below. It does not use a real time clock so it will not retain the time when it loses power. Time is set with a single button to advance minutes to the desired time. A micro-USB cord is included, but not an adapter. It can be plugged in to any 5V USB charger for power.

Why

I enjoy finding new purposes for old electronics, and looking at an old LED display designed for one purpose and thinking about how to adapt it to another is a fun challenge that results in an interesting design result.

What makes it special?

This clock is special because the remnants of its former life are evident in the LED display's design. The time is displayed in simple 12-hr format but each second ticks away on the words and symbols around the numeric display, and each minute is punctuated by a zippy animation. The circuitry is made with a custom designed and milled single-sided circuit board. One thing to be aware of is the words along the top row that say "MONTH", "DAY", "YEAR", "DATE" sadly did not have any pins available to light them; the display must have been manufactured for multiple DVD/VCR models and the circuitry did not utilize those elements in this iteration.