Watch the time go by with this electromechanical clock
In the 18th century, watchmakers were held in high esteem, because turning pieces of metal and wire into functional watches must have seemed like magic at the time. The advent of mass production has rendered their craft largely obsolete, but there are several hardware hackers today who could be considered the modern heirs of the craft. [Hans Andersson] is one of them and has made a name for himself with an impressive portfolio of electromechanical clocks. His latest work, called Time Slider, is just as captivating as his previous work.
The mechanical display is almost entirely made up of 3D printed components. Four flat pieces of red PLA form a basic 88:88 indicator, over which the correct time is displayed by sliding frames that darken certain pixels. These frames are moved up and down by a rack system driven by stepper motors. Evertyhing is controlled by an Arduino Mega, along with a DS3231 RTC and eight ULN2003-based stepper motor drivers.
[Hans] wrote a detailed assembly guide to accompany the STL files and Arduino code, so it should be easy to make your own Time Slider if you have a decent supply of PLA filament. The display takes about ten seconds to update, but the process has a certain hypnotic quality to it, aided by the mechanical hum of stepper motors in the background. In particular, the hourly change of three or four digits at a time is fascinating, as you can see in the video embedded below.
Time Slider is the latest in [Hans]'s long line of mechanical clocks, which includes the Time Twister series which has evolved from a clever Lego-based design to a neat 3D-printed model. The rack system can also be used to create a compact linear clock.
In the 18th century, watchmakers were held in high esteem, because turning pieces of metal and wire into functional watches must have seemed like magic at the time. The advent of mass production has rendered their craft largely obsolete, but there are several hardware hackers today who could be considered the modern heirs of the craft. [Hans Andersson] is one of them and has made a name for himself with an impressive portfolio of electromechanical clocks. His latest work, called Time Slider, is just as captivating as his previous work.
The mechanical display is almost entirely made up of 3D printed components. Four flat pieces of red PLA form a basic 88:88 indicator, over which the correct time is displayed by sliding frames that darken certain pixels. These frames are moved up and down by a rack system driven by stepper motors. Evertyhing is controlled by an Arduino Mega, along with a DS3231 RTC and eight ULN2003-based stepper motor drivers.
[Hans] wrote a detailed assembly guide to accompany the STL files and Arduino code, so it should be easy to make your own Time Slider if you have a decent supply of PLA filament. The display takes about ten seconds to update, but the process has a certain hypnotic quality to it, aided by the mechanical hum of stepper motors in the background. In particular, the hourly change of three or four digits at a time is fascinating, as you can see in the video embedded below.
Time Slider is the latest in [Hans]'s long line of mechanical clocks, which includes the Time Twister series which has evolved from a clever Lego-based design to a neat 3D-printed model. The rack system can also be used to create a compact linear clock.
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