Over at Hackaday, the user sjm4306 has posted some pretty cool projects in the past, including a Nixie-tube clock and a tiny IV-21 VFD clock.
Now he's created something else delightful — a little clock that uses LEDs to spell out the time by backlighting cut-out words. I've seen lots of word clocks but never one with such an elegant little form factor.
He worked neatly with some design constraints too, as Hackaday notes:
One design challenge for the letter matrix was fitting all possible minutes into the array. Rather than making a larger array of letters, [sjm4306] had the clock describe the time down to five-minute intervals then add asterisks for the full time. It’s a pretty understandable solution for keeping the design simple, and the letters all fit onto the design so well!
Here's his design video …
… and some more pix of the finished clock:
