A DIY Integrated Circuit Clock and Case

The last few months, I’ve ben obsessed with Ben Eater’s series where he builds an 8-bit CPU, video card, and 6502 computer using breadboards. He makes kits available for purchase, but I wanted to do my own thing. As I learned more about integrated circuits, it seemed like a clock would be a fun project–not too challenging, but I’d still learn plenty. It’s easy to make a clock from an Arduino or other microcontroller, but making it from integrate circuits is a little harder. Shout-out to Gislain Benoit who deadbugged a clock from just transistors, resistors, and capacitors!

I found this video from bigclivedotcom where he walks through soldering an IC clock kit he found on Aliexpress. I realized that it would be very helpful to have functional hardware in my hands before I designed any sort of schematic. Clive gave a link to the kit he used, and it was only $5! I picked up three because the cost of the ICs, displays, and other components would make my own future design cheaper. I also expected to break a part or two, and I did. It showed up looking like this:

The soldering process was perfectly straightforward. It took a while, but it turned out well. Many pads were fairly compact, but it wasn’t too hard to avoid short circuits. I like that it uses a crystal oscillator over the less-accurate 555 timer.

When I hooked it up to a 5V power supply, it worked immediately!

writeup in progress