Mar 102017
 
NTP clock RasPiO InsPiRing Pi Zero W

I’ve been messing about with the Pi Zero W and one of my RasPiO InsPiRing boards to make a colourful clock that keeps accurate time using NTP (Network Time Protocol). Because the Zero W has WiFi onboard, it’s perfect for things like this. It’s quite a visual thing, so I made a video about it…

Here’s the Code

If you want a walk-through of the code, I made a little walk-through video of it, but decided to keep that separate because not everybody would want that level of detail. You can find that after the code.

import time
from time import strftime, sleep
from datetime import datetime
import apa           # RasPiO InsPiRing driver class

numleds = 24         # number of LEDs in our display
brightness = 0xE5    # 224-255 or 0xE0-0xFF

ledstrip = apa.Apa(numleds) # initiate an LED strip

ledstrip.flush_leds()  # initiate LEDs
ledstrip.zero_leds()
ledstrip.write_leds()

print ('Press Ctrl-C to quit.')

try:
    while True:
        timenow = datetime.now().strftime('%H%M%S.%f').rstrip('0')
        hour = int(timenow[0:2])
        if hour >= 12:
            hour = hour - 12
        minute = int(timenow[2:4])
        second = float(timenow[4:])
        print(hour, minute, second)

        ledstrip.led_set(hour*2, brightness, 0, 0, 255)      # 3 Red LEDs for the hour
        ledstrip.led_set(hour*2+1, brightness, 0, 0, 255)
        if hour == 0:
            ledstrip.led_set(23, brightness, 0, 0, 255)
        else:
            ledstrip.led_set(hour*2-1, brightness, 0, 0, 255)

        precise_minute = float(minute + second/60.0)
        ledstrip.led_set(int(precise_minute / 2.5) , brightness, 0, 255, 0) # green minute

        ledstrip.led_set(int(second / 2.5) , brightness, 255, 0, 0)         # blue second

        ledstrip.write_leds()

        # Now blank the LED values for all LEDs in use, so that if any values
        # change in the next loop iteration, we've cleaned up behind us
        
        ledstrip.led_set(int(second / 2.5) , brightness, 0, 0, 0)        
        ledstrip.led_set(int(precise_minute / 2.5) , brightness, 0, 0, 0)

        ledstrip.led_set(hour*2+1, brightness, 0, 0, 0)   
        ledstrip.led_set(hour*2  , brightness, 0, 0, 0)
        ledstrip.led_set(hour*2-1, brightness, 0, 0, 0)
    
        time.sleep(0.03)   # limit the number of cycles to ~33 fps

        if minute == 59 and int(second) == 59:    # Red wipe hourly
            for i in range(numleds):
                ledstrip.led_set(i , brightness, 0, 0, 255)
                ledstrip.write_leds()
                sleep(0.03)
            sleep(0.25)
            for i in range(numleds):
                ledstrip.led_set(i , brightness, 0, 0, 0)
            ledstrip.write_leds()

        elif minute == 29 and int(second) == 59:  # Green wipe half-hourly
            for i in range(numleds):
                ledstrip.led_set(i , brightness, 0, 255, 0)
                ledstrip.write_leds()
                sleep(0.03)
            sleep(0.25)
            for i in range(numleds):
                ledstrip.led_set(i , brightness, 0, 0, 0)
            ledstrip.write_leds()
                                                  # Blue wipe quarter-hourly
        elif (minute == 14 or minute == 44) and int(second) == 59:
            for i in range(numleds):
                ledstrip.led_set(i , brightness, 255, 0, 0)
                ledstrip.write_leds()
                sleep(0.03)
            sleep(0.25)
            for i in range(numleds):
                ledstrip.led_set(i , brightness, 0, 0, 0)
            ledstrip.write_leds()        

finally:
    print("/nAll LEDs OFF - BYE!/n")
    ledstrip.zero_leds()
    ledstrip.write_leds()

I’ll pre-empt those who are going to tell me that the animations (53-81) could be made into a single function. I know that. I just haven’t got ‘a round tuit’ yet. Here’s the code walk-through video…

If you find this interesting, you’ll probably like the RasPiO InsPiRing KickStarter. Please pop over and have a look.

  6 Responses to “How to make an internet clock with NTP, Pi Zero W and RasPiO InsPiRing”

  1. Looks lovely, that. Practical, blinky and colourful. :-D

  2. why not using the object returned by datetime.now() ? it already provides .hour, .minute and .second as numeric. No need for string manipulations.

    • You’re right. Thanks for pointing that out. I dug a bit deeper into datetime() I didn’t know those were hiding there :)

      I’ll make some tweaks to the code.

  3. What is the licence for your code?
    Did you share your library already?
    Line 41-49: Why don’t you clear all pixel?
    Line 49 is wrong compared to Line 30.

    There is so much to say or fix in this code… of only you open source it. :-)

    • I’m not ready to publish the class yet. When I do it will be on a CC-BY-NA-4 I think (not fully decided).

      I don’t think you watched the second video where I explained how the code works and how the “blanking” works. Although I didn’t mention that these are not WS2812 so do not have to be pulsed regularly. They are APA102 and stay set at last setting until they get the next setting. 41-49 resets the led values in the list to zero, but that is not sent to the LEDs until the next iteration of line 39. It’s only done so we can clean up after ourselves if in the next frame we’re writing to the next LED in the sequence.

      The code works.

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