I bought a cheap Chinese wall clock for virtually the price of a few cans of beer to see how it compares to the DIY clocks I have made myself. Some of which I have sold on eBay or Tindie and recently I have had not much success.
This I believe is because there are cheap clocks available on sites like AliExpress and Wish.com which consumers would rather buy than a home made item. It just isn't possible for an electronics hobbyist to make something like this for less than £100 unless you use salvaged parts. Even then the mass produced stuff is so cheap you haven't got a chance.
But...
The cheap Chinese stuff is cheap for a reason; this clock gains time, the temperature display is inaccurate and the auto brightness does not work properly. Something you make yourself wouldn't have these problems.
It's a single board construction with the LED's soldered directly to the PCB and a diffusing assembly placed over the top with cutouts for the segments. It does not use conventional standard 7 segment LED display modules.
It does what it says it does. Just not very well and that reflects in the price. A power supply isn't included but it runs off anything with a USB port that can supply 1 amp. At minimum brightness the current consumption is only around 200mA.
However someone has gone to a lot of effort to make a decent product that looks good in most rooms but then cut corners which essentially makes it useless for its original purpose. A clock that doesn't keep time is pointless.
#clocks
#wallclock