This is a micropython program that allows a Raspberry Pi Pico W and MAX7219 7-segment display to be used as a clock which syncs with an NTP server.

Thanks to Paul Dwerryhouse, who wrote the max7219_8digit library, to Roberto Bellingeri, who wrote the localPTZtime library, and to Andy Lawton AJ9L, whose program I stole from shamelessly, and who supplied some of the hardware for my very intimidating-looking clock.

In order for this program to work, you will need to download the following libraries:

MAX7219_8digit from https://github.com/pdwerryhouse/max7219_8digit localPTZtime from https://github.com/bellingeri/localPTZtime

To use the program, set Brightness as you prefer, choose an NTP host, copy a valid POSIX timezone into the program (EST is not a valid POSIX timezone; you'll need to Google yours up!) and add your WiFi credentials.

Copyright (c)2025 Chris Reitz, N9CVR

This program is released under the GNU GPL v3.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Roadmap:

v1.0 - Initial release (8/8/2025)

v2.0 - improve calls to NTP server. I'd like to detect how long the clock has been accurate, and only call the NTP server when we're starting to lose accuracy. (8/9/25)