The PiMuxClock, is a simple Raspberry Pi add-on card, allowing you to create a basic digital clock and temperature display for your RPi.

The PiMuxClock has been launched as Kickstarter project. To support and please visit the PiMuxClock Kickstarter page. There you will find full details of the available pledge levels and associated rewards.

There are a limited number of 50 early bird kits up for grabs. These are being offered at a slightly lower pledge level and will ship in June this year (at least month before the other rewards).

Here is some more information on the PiMuxClock, for full details check out the Kickstarter page.

The key design goal for the PiMuxClock was to get back to basics and develop a low cost, educational hardware project. No buffers or serial interfaces just direct connection to the Raspberry Pi GPIO, programmable with simple Python code to drive the multiplexed display. As there was a bit of spare room on the PCB so it seemed like a good idea to add the ability to display room temperature as an option. And to allow people to create a completely standalone clock I also added a socket to connect in the Adfruit DS1307 real time clock board – because the Rpi does not have its own battery backed clock it relies on connecting to internet at power up to ensure the Linux System time is correct, adding the DS1307 board gets around this. Finally the production design will also include a second rear connector providing access to a number of unused GPIO lines, creating more possibilities for extensions to the basic clock project.

This provides for 2 core options, a basic 4 digit clock project or an enhanced option allowing students and hobbyists to learn serial interfacing and experiment further. A common PCB will be used for both versions making it easy for users to ‘self upgrade’ to the enhanced version.

Update 26th April, I have now completed the PCB design and ordered a final prototype PCB to test.