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Time and Day of Week from Arduino RTC

Introduction

Arduino's are very common microcontroller boards used to study and design programmable electronics. It is often used with multiple peripherals such as buttons, sliders, sensors and motors.

Together with a TIMI acting as a small fancy display, Arduino boards become a lot more powerful and interesting to use in prototyping.

This project showcases a TIMI-96 module controlled by an Arduino Uno to display time of day and day of week information from an RTC module.

Requirements

Hardware

  • TIMI-96
  • Mates Programmer
  • USB Type A to microUSB cable (for the Mates Programmer)
  • USB Type A to Type B cable (for the Arduino, replace as necessary)
  • DS3231 RTC Module
  • Connecting Wires
  • Arduino Uno
  • Breadboard

Software

Graphics Design

Step 1: Open Mates Studio and create a Commander project for TIMI-96 with Reversed Landscape orientation

TIMI-96

Select Commander

Step 2: Browse the library for appropriate page designs. For this project, Digital Clock page under Date and Time category was used.

Browse Library

Digital Clock

Step 3: After finalizing the design, connect TIMI-96 to your computer

Connect TIMI-96

Step 4: Upload the project to the appropriate COM port

Select Port

Project Upload

Step 5: When prompted, click Proceed to continue with upload.

Day and Time

Note

It is recommended that the graphics design is finalized before moving to the next steps when working on a project.

Programming the Arduino

Step 1: Install the MatesController library using Arduino’s Library Manager.

Arduino Library Manager

Step 2: Install the RTClib library using Arduino’s Library Manager.

RTClib Library

Step 3: Include MatesController.h and RTClib.h to your project.

#include "MatesController.h"
#include "RTClib.h"

Step 4: Create a MatesController instance named mates and an RTC_DS3231 instance named rtc.

MatesController mates = MatesController(Serial);
RTC_DS3231 rtc;

This will initialize the MatesController instance to the default reset pin 4 using a LOW pulse.

Step 5: (Optional) Create a function for toggling the built-in LED of the Arduino board. This can be used for debugging or showing errors if the Serial monitor can’t be used.

int errLedStatus = LOW;
void ErrorLed_Toggle() {
  errLedStatus = ~errLedStatus;
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, errLedStatus);
}

Step 6: (Optional) At the beginning of the setup function, set the built-in LED pin to OUTPUT and set it to LOW.

pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, errLedStatus);

Step 7: To start using the MatesController instance, use the begin function

mates.begin();

This will initialize the Serial UART at the default baudrate of 9600

Step 8: (Optional) The begin function can be enclosed in an if condition to handle initialization errors.

if (!mates.begin()) {
  // Display didn't send ready signal in time
  while (1) {
    ErrorLed_Toggle();
    delay(100);
  }
}

Step 9: To print the day of week, an array of strings needs to be prepared.

// Days of Week Strings
const char * daysOfWeek[] = {
  "SUNDAY",
  "MONDAY",
  "TUESDAY",
  "WEDNESDAY",
  "THURSDAY",
  "FRIDAY",
  "SATURDAY"
};

Step 10: In the loop function, the time and day values are read from the RTC and sent to TIMI as necessary.

void loop() {
  static int8_t lastDay = -1;

  DateTime now = rtc.now();

  int8_t  dy = now.dayOfTheWeek();
  int16_t hr = now.hour();
  int16_t mn = now.minute();
  int16_t sc = now.second();

  mates.setLedDigitsValue(0, hr);
  mates.setLedDigitsValue(1, mn);
  mates.setLedDigitsValue(2, sc);

  if (lastDay != dy) {
    mates.updateTextArea(0, daysOfWeek[dy]);
    lastDay = dy; // prevents writing the same text to TextArea
  }
}

As shown, the RTC module is read every loop with the day of week and time values. The widgets are then updated accordingly.

Running the Project

After designing the user interface for TIMI and writing code for the Arduino and programming them, it is time to connect the devices together. Follow the diagram below for the connection between TIMI and Arduino.

Arduino TIMI

Finally, supply power to the Arduino and observe the behavior of the project.

Downloadable Resources

Here are the links to the software applications, libraries and completed project files.