2/4/2026 - 3D Design Pt. 1 ; Initial design decisions and starting work

03-02-2026

As I said in the project description, this project, CircadiUp, is an alarm clock designed to wake me up in the best and smoothest way possible.

I saw a reel on Instagram a long time ago advertising a similar concept : An alarm clock that uses light to wake you up smoothly.

Basically how this clock will work, is progressively lighting up my room and maybe play some sounds, some time before the desired alarm time. This will allow the the alarm clock to prevent me from getting in a new deep sleep cycle right before the alarm goes off. So a while before the alarm rings, I will be sleeping lightly, and this will make it easier to wake up more energetic.

Seems very logical, so let's hope that sleep works this way :)

I want it to have a blend between a retro style look, and a touch of modernity and industrial feel.

It will feature a neopixel matrix at the front to have a very beautiful way to emit light.
This will enable the "clock" to adapt the colors and brightness based on time, temperature...

It will also feature a round OLED display in the middle to set the alarm time, lighting settings, play some animations, display the status of the clock...

With that in mind, I hopped in Solidworks to start designing.

Since it is very late now, I only started to get the main shape of the clock after doing some research and choosing some of the components that I will be using.

I started by making the outer shell. I started by making a cylindrical shape, made to be opened from the back.

I made it 250mm in diameter, just below the 256*256mm bed size of the Bambu Lab A1 that I will hopefully be getting soon.

I then made some holes for screws to mount the diffuser on the front, and added a fillet to make everything look better.

As I am really obsessed with detail, I made the fillet diameter in such a way that the screw holes will sit directly in the middle of the section between the inner edge and the fillet starting point !

I can't really be blamed here ! The clock will be always in front of me in my room, and I know that I will very quickly be frustrated about it XD

Then I went on by making the diffuser. This should be printed in white PLA, and maybe have a small black/colored portion where the screen will go, to make everthing look cleaner.

I made it very thin so that it effectively diffuses the light, not block it.

2/6/2026 - 3D Design Pt.2 ; Legs

05-02-2026

Today, I made the legs for the thing.

I started by making 4 holes in the outer ring of the alarm clock.

Then I started by working on the legs.

I made them in a way that would make the leg starting point perfectly flush with the outer shell.

I made a cylinder and then cut the extra by making a circle matching the outer diameter of the alarm clock.

Next, I started making the leg itself.

I wanted it to be shaped like a cone with a sphere at the end, similar to the ones below :

I knew that I would need to use loft, but I only used it once, and I had so much difficulty with it. So I also figured that using revolved boss should also work if the sketch was made correctly.

So I worked on a sketch that I thought would work with revolved boss, but it didn't work.

Since the leg was going to be at an angle, this meant that the revolved feature would make the tip as designed, but the base would interfere with the starting shape.

So I scrapped this idea, and decided to use lofted boss base, as it seems like the most adapted to what I want to make.

And boy did it give me a headache.

At first, I made some sketches along the length of the leg. But when I wanted to select the sketch profiles, Solidworks didn't allow me to select the axis end point, and when I wanted to select the guide lines and curves, Solidworks didn't allow me to choose the inner axis.

I then realized that the guide curves should be part of the end shape wanted, and that the end point should be part of that guide curve.

After tweaking around, I got it about right. But when I added one leg to the assembly, it was extra short. So I tried to make it longer -> New headache.

When I made the guide sketch longer, and the inner axis longer, my sketch profiles didn't adapt to the new lines, so I had to manually adjust them.

And I repeated this process maybe 2-3 times before I got a satisfying leg length.

But then I realized that the angle I made for the legs which was 60 degrees from the clock curve, was too steep, and made the legs on opposites sides of the clock spread a lot more than desired. So I changed the guide angles, and came the need to adapt every single sketch profile.

But in the end, I got it right (I really hope...)


I then added 4 legs to the assembly.

And to align the legs in the direction I wanted, I had to make sketches in the clock housing and the legs to later mate them in the assembly.

Here's the end result :