This circuit is NTP clock with date and sound alarm, based on Arduino compatible board Intel Galileo Gen2 development board. In this article will be described everything you need to build this circuit and make it work.

The parts used:

• Intel Galileo Gen2 board
• Power supply for Intel Galileo Gen2
• USB cable for Intel Galileo gen2
• LCD Keypad shield for Arduino
• Micro SD card 32GB
• Ethernet network patch cable
• USB sound card
• Internet connection

Software used:

• Arduino IDE 1.6.9
• SD card image for Intel Galileo
• NTP software installation for Linux at Galileo
• Sketch ntp_time-1.xx.ino

First of all, download and prepare Arduino IDE. First look at the following article: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/IntelGalileoGen2. The latest version of Arduino IDE can be downloaded from here: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software I assume that work with Galileo is known to you from this article and that you can upload sketch to the board. Plug LCD keypad into galileo pinheaders. Now prepare SD card by extract all files from the sd card image directory onto SD card and plug it into the Galileo. Plug the network cable into the switch (it is assumed that default gateway is has the 192.168.0.1 IP address, otherwise change the sketch to satisfy your needs). Plug the USB cable to Galileo. Plug the power supply cable to galileo. And the last but not least plug the USB cable to personal computer.

Now Galileo should boot from the SD card (using SD card makes sketches persistent). Load sketch ntp_time into the IDE and upload it into the Galileo. Now networking is setup and not current time should be displayed on the LCD. Now when networking is setup by sketch you should be able to SSH to Galileo using for example PuTTy.exe or Bitwise ssh client using Galileo's default IP address 192.168.0.201. If you want to use another IP address, then change it in the sketch uploading it again into Galileo. Start ftp on Galileo using following command:

This starts ftp server on Galileo and making /tmp root directory for uploading files. Then ftp into Galileo using its IP address and unpack all 4 ntp client files using ftp client for example Total commander into root directory. Then issue following command:

By this procedure the NTP software for the Intel Galileo's Linux is installed. Now press RESET button on LCD shield while USB cable is still connected to PC and the correct date and time should be displayed. The softwre synchronizes time with the server time.nist.gov every whole hour.

Release notes:

Since the version 1.12r05 of the preinstalled Micro SDHC card, the new song 'Digi Sequencer' was added to the music directory.

Since the version 1.12r04 of the preinstalled Micro SDHC card, the directory for music is at the root of SD card. From Galileo's OS view it is directory /media/realroot/music because higher capacity of sd card can be used.

Since the version 1.12 of the Sketch, the clock started to have really musical alarms. USB sound card is used to play the sounds when alarm is started. Clock plays in the endless loop all the WAV sounds in the directory /mnt/music/ like a JukeBox. For now the clock plays only WAV files. It is planned to make it play MP3s in future revisions of the NTP clock.

Since the version 1.11 of the Sketch, the settings are hidden and these settings are started by pressing SELECT button. Two DNS servers are set. Different NTP server is choosen time-a.nist.gov for better reliability.

Since the version 1.09 of the sketch, the NTP clock is prepared for alarm and equiped with menu system to set the alarm and immediate synchronization with NTP server. The menu works as follows: with the SELECT button you can go through setting like this: alarm hours->alarm minutes->alarm yes/no->synchronization yes/no. the selection is set by pressing UP/DOWN buttons and selected by pressing SELECT again. The SELECT button cycles through all the settings too.

Since the version 1.08, the led blinking code changed to keep led blink in the frequency of 1Hz derived from seconds changes.

Since the version 1.07, the builtin LED is blinking in the rhythm of seconds.

Since the version 1.06, when the button SELECT is pressed, clock is synchronized with the NTP server immediately.

Download:

The download does not contain any virus, spyware, adware or malware.

For those who don't want to bother with installation of all the software and use musical alarms, here is the preinstalled SD card with all the software needed.:

License Agreement:

The project is free for noncomercial usage. The commercial users will pay for the software. You are granted unlimited rights to use ntp_time. All files must remain intact and unmodified from the original as distributed by the author.

Disclaimer of Warranty

THIS SOFTWARE AND THE ACCOMPANYING FILES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES.

Jiří Kocián © Copyright 2017. All rights reserved.
Contact: info@kocianjiri.com

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