Every now and then, you'll find posts wherein I warn our Esteemed admin to disable my alarm clock. This is because, in order to get me out of bed in a timely manner, I need an alarm clock that is a bit outside of normal store bought spec. Enter my soldering iron, exit a monstrosity:
This is the alarm clock of DOOM version 2.3. It's been rewired so that the sound goes through a set of computer speakers that amplify the sound by a significant factor. To prevent me from hitting the snooze button every 5 minutes and going back to bed, the snooze button has been removed and the wire leads glued over. To keep me from just resetting the alarm 10 minutes into the future, the buttons themselves have been moved to an external cable that is removable and hideable. As a final barrier between me and going back to sleep in my warm, warm bed, I wired up a 555 timer to act as a delay. When the Big Red Button is pressed, the alarm turns off. It will turn back on immediately if the button is released in under a minute. The only way to get the alarm to switch off permanently is to hold the button down for a full minute. During this time, I generally chug down a cup of coffee, brewed on an adjacent coffee maker that's on a timer and starts the brew cycle 20 minutes before the alarm goes off.
To reduce the number of tired roommate related death threats, I've installed a bypass switch a good distance from my room that allows the people I live with to turn the alarm off without having to brave my sometimes treacherous room. The switch turns the alarm off, and simultaneously activates a blinker so I know to switch it back to active mode. More details (including future plans and descriptions of versions 1-2.2 of the alarm clock) available on the
official writeup.
