Hi all
I've made a few posts since I've started using Gearotic but I just wanted to share with you all a clock that I'm prototyping. The gears are large with the escape wheel being 100mm and the third one 185mm. I'm prototyping a driving mechanism at the moment with some success. You will see in the video that I'm using a servo and an Arduino to do the resetting of a counterweight driving arm, this is a temporary solution as I'm thinking more along the lines of electromagnets or solenoid to do this. Once I've proven the concept the frame will be a skeletonised frame and the wheels around 10mm thick.
All the wheels were designed in Gearotic and printed with my Prusa i3 mk2 3D printer.
Hope you like the concept as I said it's a bit of fun.
https://youtu.be/_OKrt9Gdu9o
3D printed clock prototyping
3D printed clock prototyping
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Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Awesome, good work. Looks amazingly like my basement when Im prototyping a new "thing".
Im also using an arduino in my latest toy, its pretty impressive what one can do with an arduino..
Art
Im also using an arduino in my latest toy, its pretty impressive what one can do with an arduino..
Art
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Especially when the Nanos are only a couple bucks. I just got an impulse purchase of some STM32F103C8T6 ARM boards (aka the "blue pill"). $2.13 each, a few more pins than an Nano, 72Mhz processor, reportedly (still waiting on an ST-link emulator) works with the Arduino IDE. Slightly cheaper then the big rock candy mountain V3 Nanos, so even though they're overkill for my recent arduino projects (most recently a controller for a traffic light a neighbor got broken and revived) it's hard to argue with cheaper and faster. Unless you're Mrs. Moose, of course.ArtF wrote: Im also using an arduino in my latest toy, its pretty impressive what one can do with an arduino..
After having started in the multi-megabuck mainframe age I'm still easily amused with these cheap MCU boards. Pretty soon going to have to start going to board hoarder anonymous, they're starting to pile up. Besides the arduino box there's (at least) Stellarises, MSP430s, an Mbed, plus a Pi or two within reach in the Moosecave.
Kirk
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
I hear that. I paid 1 dollar for a nano, picked up 10.. just in case. EasyDriver stepper controllers for it were 1 dollar each too,
so two axis for 3 bucks plus 2 stepper motors.. got those for 10 bucks each. So $23.00 for a dual axis stepper motor system
that runs on an old routers wall wart. Not bad!
They only have 2K memory for variables, so its limited as to what you can do... but its fun to play with.. I can see my next
project will bump up to 80mhz or so and 32 bit, their getting pretty cheap too.
Art
so two axis for 3 bucks plus 2 stepper motors.. got those for 10 bucks each. So $23.00 for a dual axis stepper motor system
that runs on an old routers wall wart. Not bad!
They only have 2K memory for variables, so its limited as to what you can do... but its fun to play with.. I can see my next
project will bump up to 80mhz or so and 32 bit, their getting pretty cheap too.
Art
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Almost everything I make seems to have at least one Arduino in it. My wife's semi-automatic loom will use 10 of them in it's final 8-shaft form! Or 9 if I end up using a Raspberry Pi instead for the touchscreen controller. My GPS locked clock, for which I'm writing software at the moment, has but one little NANO.
On a more serious note: What designs , if any, have you looked at for a solenoid pendulum drive circuit? I've tried the very simple one from Nuts & Volts magazine at the link below but had no sucess with the low amplitude , therefore low magnet speed, oscillations required for a clock. My current plan for the GPS clock involves a Hall effect sensor driving an interrupt on the Arduino which triggers the solenoid drive circuit. Please keep us informed of how you get on.
http://nutsvolts.texterity.com/nutsvolt ... g=36#pg360
Kit
On a more serious note: What designs , if any, have you looked at for a solenoid pendulum drive circuit? I've tried the very simple one from Nuts & Volts magazine at the link below but had no sucess with the low amplitude , therefore low magnet speed, oscillations required for a clock. My current plan for the GPS clock involves a Hall effect sensor driving an interrupt on the Arduino which triggers the solenoid drive circuit. Please keep us informed of how you get on.
http://nutsvolts.texterity.com/nutsvolt ... g=36#pg360
Kit
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Hi kit,, Art
Yeah your right but I was also thinking about running my Wife on an Arduino.... ;D
Would like to see the loom and the gps clock, I'm mad on clock related topics even more so if they are a mix of electronics and traditional mechanical.
I'm also making my version of a 3D seven seg digital clock.
See photo of the layout. The joints of the segments house the RGB. LED's and are so made that there's no bleed from another LED into another segment. All the wires and the electronics will be hidden within the 3D printed components . (Just if your interested).
As for the solenoid I'm looking at this myself but not as in the nuts/volts example. When I say solenoid I mean an actuator really to reset the gravity arm.
Having said that I'm really interested in this topic as I collect antique Master clocks. These days I think we over complete the situation of moving the pendulum via electro magnets. I suppose there's two trains of thought 1. Lock the pendulum in to a phase locked loop or give it a burst only as and when the amplitude needs it. The later being used it antique electric master clocks like GPO. type 36 that use the very simple and successful hipp toggle arrangement. This method as been used for around 80 or more. The first method also very interesting and one I'm going to look in to, phase locked loop pendulums isn't new but I like the pendulum to be more free. Here's on website with loads of good info.
http://sound.whsites.net/clocks/kundo.html
He shows many examples of moving a pendulum for time keeping and also did a free pendulum.
Mark
Yeah your right but I was also thinking about running my Wife on an Arduino.... ;D
Would like to see the loom and the gps clock, I'm mad on clock related topics even more so if they are a mix of electronics and traditional mechanical.
I'm also making my version of a 3D seven seg digital clock.
See photo of the layout. The joints of the segments house the RGB. LED's and are so made that there's no bleed from another LED into another segment. All the wires and the electronics will be hidden within the 3D printed components . (Just if your interested).
As for the solenoid I'm looking at this myself but not as in the nuts/volts example. When I say solenoid I mean an actuator really to reset the gravity arm.
Having said that I'm really interested in this topic as I collect antique Master clocks. These days I think we over complete the situation of moving the pendulum via electro magnets. I suppose there's two trains of thought 1. Lock the pendulum in to a phase locked loop or give it a burst only as and when the amplitude needs it. The later being used it antique electric master clocks like GPO. type 36 that use the very simple and successful hipp toggle arrangement. This method as been used for around 80 or more. The first method also very interesting and one I'm going to look in to, phase locked loop pendulums isn't new but I like the pendulum to be more free. Here's on website with loads of good info.
http://sound.whsites.net/clocks/kundo.html
He shows many examples of moving a pendulum for time keeping and also did a free pendulum.
Mark
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Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Hi:
The LED clock is brilliant! I really admire such thinking out of the box. Will you have to frost those rods to see the light?
I think its a great idea for a unique look, thx for sharing it with me, Ill ponder on that one for a bit.. and fit it into
one sculpture or another..
I havent tried a solenoid drive for a clock yet, though it is back of mind..
For a solenoid .. Id think youd want a small PWM pulse ..measured and adjustable to allow
beating in the clock on a coil just as the pendulums magnet passes by. I used a digikey US1881LUA
to detect magnet passing in another thing I built., I suspect a nano with one of those as input, and a interrupt driven
on that input to put a adjustable PWM into a coil beneath is would do. The arduino can then
easily self adjust the pwm to make sure the magnet passes the sensor in the proper time ..
its a self adjusting thing then... Ill have to give some thought .. The site listed shows some
great information, but as a nano only costs a buck or so, I think I prefer using one for the
circuit..makes it much easier to control the loop accurately and change over time to take
into account the actual number of times the pendulum has swung over a long period of time..
Its handy to be able to do math in a circuit. :)
Art
The LED clock is brilliant! I really admire such thinking out of the box. Will you have to frost those rods to see the light?
I think its a great idea for a unique look, thx for sharing it with me, Ill ponder on that one for a bit.. and fit it into
one sculpture or another..
I havent tried a solenoid drive for a clock yet, though it is back of mind..
For a solenoid .. Id think youd want a small PWM pulse ..measured and adjustable to allow
beating in the clock on a coil just as the pendulums magnet passes by. I used a digikey US1881LUA
to detect magnet passing in another thing I built., I suspect a nano with one of those as input, and a interrupt driven
on that input to put a adjustable PWM into a coil beneath is would do. The arduino can then
easily self adjust the pwm to make sure the magnet passes the sensor in the proper time ..
its a self adjusting thing then... Ill have to give some thought .. The site listed shows some
great information, but as a nano only costs a buck or so, I think I prefer using one for the
circuit..makes it much easier to control the loop accurately and change over time to take
into account the actual number of times the pendulum has swung over a long period of time..
Its handy to be able to do math in a circuit. :)
Art
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Mark,
You'd better not let your wife read this thread! I like the 7-segment design but I'm not sure my wife would want it in our living room.
That link to the solenoid clock drives was interesting and I'm very encouraged by his remarks about the second circuit being too powerful. My planned design involves a 1 second pendulum which swings freely and drives the clock mechanism via a pair of ratchets. This will require significant power from the solenoid circuit. Accuracy of the clock will be maintained by having an adjustable weight moved by a stepper motor inside the decorative housing for the pendulum bob. GPS receivers very conveniently produce a signal called 'One Pulse Per Second' (1PPS) which is exatly what it says it is and is the most accurate timing reference most humans have access to. By simply mesuring the variation in time delay between the 1PPS and the drive pulses for the pendulum, the weight can be moved to keep the clock on time.
I've somewhat complicated the above principle by using the internal timer of the Arduino to generate a timer interrupt at 1 second intervals and use that for regulating the clock. This allows for possible gaps in GPS reception if the antenna position is not optimal. The 1PPS signal is then used to adjust the timer count to steer the internal reference to be much more accurate than the Arduino's own 16MHz crystal. Limitations in the arduino timer counting mean the accuracy is not guaranteed to be better than +-8ppm but this is enough for the clock to fre-run without a GPS signal for several hours without going more than 100mS adrift, an error it will recover from quite quickly.
Amplitude of the pendulum is controlled by having two magnets placed sightly apart on the pendulum and measuring the time between them passing a Hall sensor. This time measures the velocity of the pendulum at the centre of it's swing which is a function of the amplitude.
Where I plan to mount the clock is on an outside wall so wiring to the GPS antenna and solar battery charger can come through the wall with no visible trace. It will just be a wooden clock, with no obvious indication of what makes it move, that just happens to remain accurate to the second for years on end with no intervention. Well that's the plan! We've yet to see if it will work in practice.
That was a lot of whaffle for one post! I hope you haven't all fallen asleep yet :)
Kit
You'd better not let your wife read this thread! I like the 7-segment design but I'm not sure my wife would want it in our living room.
That link to the solenoid clock drives was interesting and I'm very encouraged by his remarks about the second circuit being too powerful. My planned design involves a 1 second pendulum which swings freely and drives the clock mechanism via a pair of ratchets. This will require significant power from the solenoid circuit. Accuracy of the clock will be maintained by having an adjustable weight moved by a stepper motor inside the decorative housing for the pendulum bob. GPS receivers very conveniently produce a signal called 'One Pulse Per Second' (1PPS) which is exatly what it says it is and is the most accurate timing reference most humans have access to. By simply mesuring the variation in time delay between the 1PPS and the drive pulses for the pendulum, the weight can be moved to keep the clock on time.
I've somewhat complicated the above principle by using the internal timer of the Arduino to generate a timer interrupt at 1 second intervals and use that for regulating the clock. This allows for possible gaps in GPS reception if the antenna position is not optimal. The 1PPS signal is then used to adjust the timer count to steer the internal reference to be much more accurate than the Arduino's own 16MHz crystal. Limitations in the arduino timer counting mean the accuracy is not guaranteed to be better than +-8ppm but this is enough for the clock to fre-run without a GPS signal for several hours without going more than 100mS adrift, an error it will recover from quite quickly.
Amplitude of the pendulum is controlled by having two magnets placed sightly apart on the pendulum and measuring the time between them passing a Hall sensor. This time measures the velocity of the pendulum at the centre of it's swing which is a function of the amplitude.
Where I plan to mount the clock is on an outside wall so wiring to the GPS antenna and solar battery charger can come through the wall with no visible trace. It will just be a wooden clock, with no obvious indication of what makes it move, that just happens to remain accurate to the second for years on end with no intervention. Well that's the plan! We've yet to see if it will work in practice.
That was a lot of whaffle for one post! I hope you haven't all fallen asleep yet :)
Kit
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Kit
Your clock is very 'up my street' so to speak. You touch on something I've given lots of thought to for quite some years with the adjustable weight within the bob, glad I'm not on my own here!!
When I've posed this idea to others the reaction I get generally isn't what I was looking for. It's been said that the weight would be somewhat be chasing its tail trying to readjust. For myself once the sweet spot as been found it's only a case of a +\- mm or so readjustment, I'm very excited by your thoughts.
Keep us posted on that.
Mark
Your clock is very 'up my street' so to speak. You touch on something I've given lots of thought to for quite some years with the adjustable weight within the bob, glad I'm not on my own here!!
When I've posed this idea to others the reaction I get generally isn't what I was looking for. It's been said that the weight would be somewhat be chasing its tail trying to readjust. For myself once the sweet spot as been found it's only a case of a +\- mm or so readjustment, I'm very excited by your thoughts.
Keep us posted on that.
Mark
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Mark,
I started a thread about this idea over a year ago (link below) but other priorities got in the way and I've only recently started to get back into it more seriously. Like you, I'm pleased to know I'm not the only one mad enough to be interested in such a thing.
As I'm sure you realise, how much time the pendulum weight spends adjusting up and down depends heavily on the algorithms controlling it. Optimising the software will be an interesting tail end to the project and will have a significant influence on how large/expensive the battery will need to be as I'm planning on using solar power for the finished machine.
To add another bit of difficulty, the pendulum will extend some distance (130mm at present but I think that may increase soon) above the pivot and this is the end where it's to be driven from. The total movement at the driven end is thus quite low, +- 20ish mm, so the solenoid drive will need plenty of torque. Well there's no point making it TOO easy is there?
Kit
http://gearotic.com/ESW/FavIcons/index.php?topic=1605.0
I started a thread about this idea over a year ago (link below) but other priorities got in the way and I've only recently started to get back into it more seriously. Like you, I'm pleased to know I'm not the only one mad enough to be interested in such a thing.
As I'm sure you realise, how much time the pendulum weight spends adjusting up and down depends heavily on the algorithms controlling it. Optimising the software will be an interesting tail end to the project and will have a significant influence on how large/expensive the battery will need to be as I'm planning on using solar power for the finished machine.
To add another bit of difficulty, the pendulum will extend some distance (130mm at present but I think that may increase soon) above the pivot and this is the end where it's to be driven from. The total movement at the driven end is thus quite low, +- 20ish mm, so the solenoid drive will need plenty of torque. Well there's no point making it TOO easy is there?
Kit
http://gearotic.com/ESW/FavIcons/index.php?topic=1605.0
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
I would think that having the arduino monitor the real time vs the number of ticks taken by the clock, it could then
adjust the power of the solenoid as a function of the accuracy of displayed time.. lower power of kick slightly or increase it slightly
to ensure long term accuracy no matter what.. so long as the arduino can get the real time.. say via gps or inet..
Always tricky to put electronics in.. you never know when to stop .. in the end a stepper can just display time after all
just by spinning the hands. Interesting thread though.
Show us anything you build with steppers, Id be very interested. Ive been temped to build some sort of wall device using steppers
but I haven't been able to come up with a cool enough design that Id like to build.
Im using a 3 dollar stepper setup on my current toy, a 1 dollar nano, and two 1 dollar stepper controllers. With prices like that
I suspect a very cool wall sculpture can be built on the cheap if you have stepper motors laying around..and I know I have a few left
from over the years.
Art
adjust the power of the solenoid as a function of the accuracy of displayed time.. lower power of kick slightly or increase it slightly
to ensure long term accuracy no matter what.. so long as the arduino can get the real time.. say via gps or inet..
Always tricky to put electronics in.. you never know when to stop .. in the end a stepper can just display time after all
just by spinning the hands. Interesting thread though.
Show us anything you build with steppers, Id be very interested. Ive been temped to build some sort of wall device using steppers
but I haven't been able to come up with a cool enough design that Id like to build.
Im using a 3 dollar stepper setup on my current toy, a 1 dollar nano, and two 1 dollar stepper controllers. With prices like that
I suspect a very cool wall sculpture can be built on the cheap if you have stepper motors laying around..and I know I have a few left
from over the years.
Art
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Art,
There is a clock design out there which keeps time by adjusting the amplitude of the pendulum oscillations but it also requires a mechanism in the escapement which can accomodate that variation. As my design uses the pendulum to drive the mechanism via ratchets, I want the amplitude to remain constant. I'm going to do this by measuring the velocity of the pendulum as described earlier and adjust the drive accordingly. The current plan is to drive the solenoid by dischaging a capacitor into it. Power will be adjusted by using one of the NANOs analogue inputs to measure, and then control, the voltage the capacitor is charged to.
I agree with you that you could just drive the hands with the stepper motor, but then you just have another clock. I can look at my watch to know the time. The logical process that brought me to look at this design was simply...
a) A wooden pendulum clock is a lovely form of kinetic sculpture, a work of art to be looked at and enjoyed.
b) Any clock that cannot be relied upon to tell you the right time is a dissapointment, which reduces the pleasure gained from a).
c) What is the most easily and cheaply available timing reference that might be a tad better than a not-oven-controlled crystal? GPS.
The look and style of the clock itself is an essential element of this project, I'm looking forward to just standing, watching it move and listening to it tick.
Re steppers in general: I've been playing with them since I started getting interested in camera motion control systems for timelapse photography and stop-motion animation a few years ago. I learned everything I know from the excelent bunch of regular contributors over at the timescapes.org forum. Then I built my CNC router table with them and now I have to find things to build with my CNC router table, hence wooden clocks.
Kit
There is a clock design out there which keeps time by adjusting the amplitude of the pendulum oscillations but it also requires a mechanism in the escapement which can accomodate that variation. As my design uses the pendulum to drive the mechanism via ratchets, I want the amplitude to remain constant. I'm going to do this by measuring the velocity of the pendulum as described earlier and adjust the drive accordingly. The current plan is to drive the solenoid by dischaging a capacitor into it. Power will be adjusted by using one of the NANOs analogue inputs to measure, and then control, the voltage the capacitor is charged to.
I agree with you that you could just drive the hands with the stepper motor, but then you just have another clock. I can look at my watch to know the time. The logical process that brought me to look at this design was simply...
a) A wooden pendulum clock is a lovely form of kinetic sculpture, a work of art to be looked at and enjoyed.
b) Any clock that cannot be relied upon to tell you the right time is a dissapointment, which reduces the pleasure gained from a).
c) What is the most easily and cheaply available timing reference that might be a tad better than a not-oven-controlled crystal? GPS.
The look and style of the clock itself is an essential element of this project, I'm looking forward to just standing, watching it move and listening to it tick.
Re steppers in general: I've been playing with them since I started getting interested in camera motion control systems for timelapse photography and stop-motion animation a few years ago. I learned everything I know from the excelent bunch of regular contributors over at the timescapes.org forum. Then I built my CNC router table with them and now I have to find things to build with my CNC router table, hence wooden clocks.
Kit
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Kit
All good reasons.. I agree. Watching the motions of a clock is kinda mesmerizing.. I havent really built one yet thats
accurate as to time, mine were always just kinetic works.. Does sound interesting to have one thats accurate and uses
steppers in unique ways..
Like.. If the bob had a stepper in it with a small pendulum on the steppers shaft, it could probably
control the main pendulum and the time variations just by pretending the smaller pendulum is like a person on a swing.
It could start from zero speed and regulate pretty tightly by how much that person swings.. could even be a small
3d printed person on a swing for that matter.. :)
Art
All good reasons.. I agree. Watching the motions of a clock is kinda mesmerizing.. I havent really built one yet thats
accurate as to time, mine were always just kinetic works.. Does sound interesting to have one thats accurate and uses
steppers in unique ways..
Like.. If the bob had a stepper in it with a small pendulum on the steppers shaft, it could probably
control the main pendulum and the time variations just by pretending the smaller pendulum is like a person on a swing.
It could start from zero speed and regulate pretty tightly by how much that person swings.. could even be a small
3d printed person on a swing for that matter.. :)
Art
Re: 3D printed clock prototyping
Art,
I'd love to know what you put in your tea ;)
Kit
I'd love to know what you put in your tea ;)
Kit
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