The xmas-icetube firmware is compatible with both the Adafruit Ice Tube Clock v1.1 and the xmas-icetube hardware revision. The firmware includes all of the features of the Adafruit firmware in addition to the following improvements:
- animated display transitions
- multiple time and date formats
- optionally pulse display during alarm and snooze
- three alarm times for selectable days of the week
- functional alarm during power outage
- adjustable alarm volume (from 0 to 10)
- progressive alarm option (gradually increasing volume)
- selectable alarm sound (high frequency beeps, low frequency beeps, high frequency three beep pulse, low frequency three beep pulse, Merry Christmas, Big Ben, Reveille, or For He's a Jolly Good Fellow)
- adjustable snooze duration
- DST support (USA, EU, or manual)
- fully automatic correction for time drift
- time-from-GPS support*
- temperature compensated timekeeping*
- no beeping or time loss after external power failure
- 4-fold or 25-fold* increase in backup battery life
- low battery warning before battery failure
- per-digit brightness adjustment for uneven displays
- automatic brightness control by ambient light*
- optionally disable display during specified time periods
- optionally disable display at night (when dark)*
- IV-18 VFD tube driven to specifications*
The installation and usage of xmas-icetube are documented reasonably well, unlike most alternative firmwares. For the most recent details, please visit the GitHub page.
Finally, please note that I consider Christmas to be a cultural holiday in the United States and many other countries. I also acknowledge that Christmas is, to many, a Christian holiday. The xmas-icetube firmware is named after Christmas as a cultural holiday. Personally, I am agnostic, and I sincerely hope that my firmware is compatible with all religions.
NOTE: Since the xmas-icetube firmware has matured significantly over the past year, I revised the initial post of this thread (above). The original post, however, is reiterated below.
If anyone would like to play with another Ice Tube Clock firmware during the holiday season, I'm posing mine. It currently runs on an atmega328p, but (theoretically) should work on the atmega168 (see the Makefile). Features include,
(1) adjustable alarm volume,
(3) progressive alarming,
(2) musical alarm ("Merry Christmas"),
(4) DST support (USA, EU, or manual),
(5) automatic drift correction,
(6) alarm sounds during power outage,
(7) no reset during power failure, and
(8) autodimmer (requires photoresistor).
I am not aware of any bugs, but please consider the project a work-in-progress. I would greatly appreciate bug reports and am open to feature requests...
Have fun!
http://github.com/johngarchie/xmas-icetube