| callan | Posted: 24 Oct 2025, 11:49 PM |
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 Member Posts: 1 Joined: 24-October 25 |
Is there a way to turn all of the displays on? I soldered one backwards (yeah I know it's mentioned about 50 times in the instructions, idk how I managed it) and then fixed it, but now the middle horizontal segment doesn’t light up. All of the new solder joints look good. Can I troubleshoot or is this a case of me needing a new part? ------------- |
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| mit | Posted: 25 Oct 2025, 10:50 AM |
 yeah whatever Admin Posts: 646 Joined: 4-May 16 |
The previous clock had a "turn on all segments" mode, but in practice it wasn't that useful because the most common error was a bridge between two parts of the matrix, and illuminating everything wouldn't show that. I had a plan to make a more advanced test mode where it would illuminate each digit in turn, but haven't got round to that yet. Which side of the clock is this on? It's quite easy to test the date side using the MODE_TEXT and TEXT=something commands. Doing it over USB serial is very convenient. If one segment isn't illuminated, it's probably that the pad or track got damaged when you desoldered it. You can fix this quite easily by linking it to the same pin on an adjacent digit. Each group of five digits (or four on the milliseconds end) is in a matrix where all the segment pins connect together. The middle horizontal segment is the G segment, so if it's on the date side near the hinge, it would be this signal:  A short jump wire to a nearby digit should fix it. Or you could test continuity with a multimeter first. It's also sometimes helpful to use the diode-checker mode of a multimeter to see if the segment illuminates at all: with the clock turned off, connect the black probe to the middle pin of the digit, and touch the red probe to each other pin and see the segments illuminate. ------------- |
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| mit | Posted: 26 Oct 2025, 02:22 PM |
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yeah whatever Admin Posts: 646 Joined: 4-May 16 |
I've just added a display test mode. If you grab the latest firmware (fwt.bin from here) and enable MODE_DISPLAYTEST in the config file, it should illuminate all segments in sequence, then count up on all digits. Note that not all of the decimal points are wired up on the clock, so don't worry if the hours/minutes/ten seconds don't illuminate it. ------------- |
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