An Arduino is by no means expensive, but that still doesn't mean that it suits your needs right out of the box. If you want to make your own custom board, Make shows you how in a three-part series.

Fred Dart at FTDI has created a new energy efficient Arduino UNO compatible board that is based on the FTDI FT231X USB UART and is capable of delivering 5V at a full 1A without overheating.

The small Arduino development board has been combined with an RTC module for timekeeping and 18 MAX7219 drivers to activate over a thousand (1,008) individual segments.