It's always annoying to have to press a button, while being half asleep, to light up a clock so as to see what time it is at night, if you don't have a clock that permanently generates light to display the time, such as a LED clock would do.

A LED clock ? Yes, like the ones SteveyG made. He made two clocks, the first one being made in only one day.

The two clocks have their own webpages on the bit-tech forum: version 1 and version 2. You may also want to check the led matrix clock here.

Here are some pictures of the different clocks, in this order: version 1, 2, and the matrix LED display.

Pretty cool isn't it ?

The photos in this post are from SteveyG and are published here with his kind permission.

There are the watches, the LED clocks, the LCD clocks, the flip clocks, the nixie clocks, and the scope clock.

The Scope Clock is a clock that uses an oscilloscope tube to display the time, giving it a very original look.

Check it out here !

Note: OZ2CPU, who made a cool home made watercooling system, also made his scope clock:

The photo in this post is from OZ2CPU's scope clock page and is published here with his kind permission.

I personnaly don't shut off my computer at night, mainly because I don't like to have to switch it on when I want to use it, because it takes some time to boot. However, there is a concern with this approach: a computer consumes a lot of power, typically more than 200W, and most of this power is transformed into heat. This heat is moved away from the sensitive components of the computer by some fans... and fans make noise. A lot of noise.

This noise if obviously a problem when you try to sleep with the computer a few meters away. As Thomas (callsign OZ2CPU), a radioamateur from Denmark says about his computer on his homemade watercooling page,

"With air cooling (using fans) it is not possible to fall asleep :-)"

I agree with him...

Thomas made an elegant watercooling system for his PC. Almost every heat-generator component is watercooled, from the processor to the graphic accelerator chipset, including the power supply unit of the PC. And unlike other watercooling systems, he didn't need a fan for the radiator, which cools down the water. The only moving part of his system is the pump that generates the necessary water flow. The good thing with this pump is that it could actually be moved in another room if it were making too much noise !

See how well finished is the waterblock of his graphic accelerator card...

Thomas can now afford sleeping without having to turn off his computer. He made a 4 channel temperature monitor (also homemade !) and he made some benchmark of his watercooling system which turned out to be very efficient.

The homemade temperature monitor looks rather good !

Maybe I should make my own watercooling too... Will you do so ? You have all the necessary informations on his website, which also presents other of his interesting projects !

Note: this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't post a link to the Zero Fan Zone !

The photos in this post are from OZ2CPU's website and are published here with his kind permission.