GEKCO DIGITAL CLOCK P/N CLK036 ASSEMBLY & OPERATION MANUAL
16
REV 1.0
GEKCO INC.
11.
Theory of Operation
11.1.
Block Diagram
MICROCONTROLLER
8 8 8 8 8 8
REAL TIME
CLOCK
HOURS
MINUTES
SECONDS
UTC/LOCAL
BUZZER
DISPLAY
DRIVER
MENU
SET
+
DISPLAY BOARD
MAIN BOARD
The clock consists of two modules, the main board and the display board. The clock was designed this
way to allow the same main board to use different display boards which could vary in size.
If may be helpful to review the block diagram and schematics while reading the circuit descriptions.
11.1.
Main Board Circuit Description
The main circuit board has the microcontroller, real time clock (RTC), switch inputs and connectors for
the display board, programming interface and the input power.
The microcontroller U3 is the heart of the clock. This design uses the popular Atmel ATMEGA328P.
This is a very powerful microcontroller with 32Kbytes of flash memory, and 2Kbytes of SRAM as well as
numerous other peripherals. See the ATMEGA328P data sheet for details.
