The Chronulator starts life as a clock, showing the hours and minutes on two old-school analog panel meters. Dress it up to look like old test equipment, audio VU meters, or motorcycle gauges. Mount it in a picture frame, shadow box, computer case, plush toy, pumpkin… Customize the code and hardware to make the meters indicate something other than time — network traffic/lag, outside temperature, freeway congestion, terror threat level, stress level, whatever! Let your imagination run free. And when you’re done, share it with us by e-mailing pictures to ideas@sharebrained.com or posting your URL to the Chronulator forum!

See a review of The Chronulator in the Federated Media Holiday Gadget Guide.

If you know how to solder or want to learn (it’s easy!), buy it as a kit. Or buy it assembled and decorate it. Buy a kit without meters and adapt your own. If you’re really brave, you can buy just the raw circuit board or print your own circuit board.

Instructions and Documentation

Kits ordered on or after November 18th contain 100uA meters. Please download the “100uA” instructions and schematic.

Instructions (100uA)
Instructions (50uA)

Basic guide to assembling, understanding, and using your Chronulator.

Hacker’s guide

The gory detail on how the Chronulator works, and ideas, tips, and techniques for bending it to your will. (Coming soon. Please E-mail for more info.)

Schematic (100uA)
Schematic (50uA)

See how the components are connected.

Circuit board layout

Design for two-layer board, 6″ x 1.5″. If you’re etching your own, one layer can be eliminated with minimal effort.

Source code

C code for TI MSP430F2002 microcontroller in “project archive” format for TI Code Composer Essentials 2.02 (free! But sadly, Windows only).

Templates

Spacing templates

Use these to plan out the mounting holes for your Chronulator meters. Meter spacing templates range from 2.75″ to 5.5″ in 0.25″ increments.

Clock Face Designs

Design-your-own templates

Design your own meter faces using our templates in PDF, Adobe Illustrator, SVG, or PNG formats.

Black Sans-Serif

Straight-up black sans-serif meter faces labeled in hours and minutes.

White Sans-Serif

Straight-up white sans-serif meter faces labeled in hours and minutes.

VU meter

VU meter scale in decibels, fudged a bit to make it easier to tell the time.

Tachometer

RPM scale from 0 to 12

Oil pressure

PSI scale from 0 to 60. (60 PSI may be a bit low for you race fans, but it sure makes telling time easier.)