I recently saw a feature on the Hackaday website for a clock that had been made from a multifunction instrument cluster using the analogue tachometer for the hours and digital speed readout for minutes. This was implemented using an Arduino, so I thought perhaps I could do something using a PIC. I found the gauges on eBay, they’re usually described something like “LCD Digital Motorcycle Speedometer” and sell for around 20GBP so I bought one to play with.

Once I’d worked out what signals and voltages it required to operate I put things together on the breadboard with a PIC16F1823. Early on I figured it would need more I/O pins so got hold of some PIC16F18345 to work with.

For the actual time keeping I’ve used a DS3231 RTC. I found some really cheap modules on banggood.com, shipped from China. Three modules worked out cheaper than buying one from a UK distributor. I don’t know if they’re genuine parts or not but they certainly keep time accurately.

I’ve now got the software pretty much complete using Microchip XC8 C compiler and also a PCB designed and on order from JLC PCB. Once all the bits are together and working I’ll do an update here with all the code and other information.