I needed a chess clock, so I made one (an ugly but functional one).
Arduino is an easy way to familiarize with both electronics and coding. Moreover they are cheap (especially non official ones), and they can do a lot.
To replicate this clock, feed your Arduino with code.ino, and wire it has described on the schema below ⬇️.
The clock functionalities are simple :
- set time (in minutes) for player 1 (P1) and player 2 (P2) [allocated times can differ]
- allocate the increment (in seconds) for P1 and P2 [increments can differ too]
- start the game by pressing the middle/start button
- pause the clock by pressing both P1 and P2 buttons
- start a new game by pressing P1 and P2 buttons and then pressing start
- Arduino (tested on Arduino UNO)
- 3 push buttons
- 7digits LED display
- A bunch of wires
- 3 resistors 10kΩ
- Facultative : a battery holder
- Facultative : a buzzer to be warned when a player time's runs out
The only limitation here is the hardware memory capacity (pretty low on Arduino UNO). The clock can stop from working when playing long or rich games (~70 moves by player).
One solution is to use a RTC (real time clock) module, but it's not implemented in this code (should be a minor workaround tho).