Arduino Nano, DS3231 RTC clock module and 4 cascaded FC-16 led matrix modules

Question

Like I said in the title, I am using a DS3231 real time clock module and 4 cascaded FC-16 modules(they are basically MAX7219 led matrices based modules). My goal is to display a timetable, a schedule for a classroom on the matrices. The purpose of the DS3231 module is to keep track of time(mainly hours) from 8:00AM to 20:00PM, to display the hour on the matrix and to change the subject when it hits even hours. Eg: when it's 8:00AM we have subject A, when it's 10:00AM we have subject B etc

And after that I have to use a ESP8266 wifi module to change the schedule from distance.

EDIT1: I managed to display the hour on the matrix, but now I really can't figure out how to display the text in 4 rows. I have 4 FC-16 modules and I want to put each of them on top of the other so I can have 4 rows of text. I managed to do this by inserting space between words but this is not optimal. I want this to be automated so the person changing the text in the program doesn't have to do the spacing thing by themselves.

#include "RTClib.h"
#include <MD_Parola.h>
#include <MD_MAX72xx.h>
#include <SPI.h>

const uint16_t WAIT_TIME = 1000;

#define HARDWARE_TYPE MD_MAX72XX::FC16_HW
#define MAX_DEVICES 16

#define CLK_PIN   13
#define DATA_PIN  11
#define CS_PIN    10

MD_Parola P = MD_Parola(HARDWARE_TYPE, CS_PIN, MAX_DEVICES);

RTC_DS3231 rtc;

//char daysOfTheWeek[7][12] = {"Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday"};

void setup () {
  P.begin();

  if (! rtc.begin()) {
    Serial.println("Couldn't find RTC");
    while (1);
  }

 if (rtc.lostPower()) {
    Serial.println("RTC lost power, lets set the time!");
//     If the RTC have lost power it will set the RTC to the date & time this sketch was compiled in the following line
   rtc.adjust(DateTime(F(__DATE__), F(__TIME__)));

  }
}

void loop () {
    DateTime now = rtc.now();

    char buffer[] = "hh:mm";  // hours and minutes
    P.print(now.toString(buffer));  // display

   // Serial.println();
    delay(1000);
}```

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 07 '20 at 10:42

how do I display the time from the DS3231 clock module on the FC-16 led matrix modules?

You can use the DateTime::toString() method to convert the current time to a string in the format of your choice, then P.print() to display that string on the LED matrix:

void loop() {
    DateTime now = rtc.now();
    char buffer[] = "hh:mm";  // hours and minutes
    P.print(now.toString(buffer));  // display
}

how do I use that hour of the day so that the microcontroller knows what text it should display next?

Condition your logic on now.hour().

Arduino Nano, DS3231 RTC clock module and 4 cascaded FC-16 led matrix modules

1 Answers1