This awesome LED clock is a quite simple project that nearly everyone can make. It can function as a Clock, can be LED decoration, or it can just be a nice piece of decoration when turned off.

Why I made this project/instructable

Last year I saw quite some great projects from people that used ping pong balls as diffusers for LEDs. This inspired me to make something with ping pong balls as well. After making some sketches and ordering parts I finally finished the project. Since some people were interested in a tutorial, I decided to improve the build and make a new improved version of the ping pong ball clock. With this instructable, I hope to get others excited and inspired to build their own projects.

Design choices

Since the ping pong balls are not oriented in a matrix, I had to come up with a nice way to display digits. The design I settled on uses 12 ping pong balls for each digit. After some sketching, I found that this allowed for the clearest digit representations. The length of the middle row is 20 balls (20*4 = 80cm). This size came to be because I wanted four digits next to each other, with a colon in the middle. I also wanted to have at least one row of balls between the digits to improve readability. Whilst doing this I found out that this way the total amount of balls and LEDs became to be 128.

Improvements over the first version

In the images, you can see the previous version and the new one (the pictures with 2 panels, the top one is the old version). The newer version:

- uses LED strips instead of separately soldered together Neo-Pixels.

- has pixels orientated in a way so it is easier to program.

- has less exposed contacts.

- has a back panel, so you can not see through gaps.

- allows for easier modifications and possible repair.

- looks cleaner, since wires and electronics cannot be seen from the front.

- Is way faster to make, since soldering 128*6 contacts, and stripping the same amount of wires takes some time

note:

For anyone building this: This project requires some repetitive work, I advise to first make a small test version of this project to see how the end result will look like. This allows you to see if the ping pong balls diffuse the light nicely. This could also prevent mistakes that otherwise might occur later on ( like having to much space between balls). I build a small piece of this display (picture) both times I build one of these, and I am glad I did.