“Merry Christmas! I was recently approached by Elegoo to create a Christmas themed project with their Arduino R3 Most Complete Starter Kit. With the included components in their kit I was able to create this Christmas themed clock that displays the time and date and every fifteen minutes the tree on the top rotates and glows green to fill a room with Christmas Spirit. Follow along with my Instructable to see how I made this clock and how you can make one too. If you have any questions be sure to let me know in the comment section and I will try my best to help you out!
I started off this project by designing the clock components in Fusion 360. The first component is the clock base. This part houses all of the electronic boards as well as the 16X2 LCD. To mount the components I used M3 nuts and bolts with spaces designed in the parts to pressure fit the M3 nuts. The clock top comes next and is used to hold the stepper motor that is used to rotate the tree as well as the custom slip ring used to power the LED’s. Next of course is the custom slip ring. I wont go into too much detail about this part yet as it is only V1 and I have several design revisions I would like to do to create a more efficient and practical slip ring design. This project was done on a very short time schedule so I had to go ahead and use V1 for this clock. I am planning on redesigning the ring and creating a more detailed Instructable later with the info and parts needed to make your own. Anyway the slip ring is used to then mount to the final part being the tree itself. This is a modified tree from a model found on Thingiverse. This part is printed in vase mode to help allow more light from the LED’s to shine through. All files needed are attached below for both the clock and current slip ring design.”