Custom Clock

"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away" - The Beatles I don't know about that, but yesterday I did laser cut the Bill Cipher Wheel from Gravity Falls that will serve as the clock face. I really liked how it turned out. I drew the shapes that is associated with the wheel by hand, so it definitely does not look as clean, but I think that it adds a handmade quality to this clock. Anyway, before and after: All I did was take it, cut it out, draw the shapes, and punch a hole for the mechanism to go through.

I think this part of the process is pretty self-explanatory. All my work yesterday led up to this job. I finally got it to work with a bit of work and a lot of luck. It still is not even close to a good solution the problems I am having, but that will take some time. Anyway, I didn't do much today, so I decided to make a nice time lapse for you guys. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUroXjpcmdA&feature=youtu.be

Remember when I said this machine is finicky. Well, experiences like this is why I say that. The actual XY movement part of the machine worked fine, it was just the laser. The Arduino Board controls the axes (plural of axis) of the machine also acts as the DC power source for the laser. When I connected everything up and ran the job, the laser failed to turn on. After some experimenting and troubleshooting with a voltmeter, I found that the source was fine, and was in fact providing the power needed to run the laser. I realized that the adapter that received the power from the cable had disconnected, leaving an open circuit. I used some heat shrink soldering connections to patch the leak (link for video below). Video Link

Last night I was browsing clock faces for anything that caught my eye. I was getting kind of bored after not finding anything out of the ordinary for 15 minutes. I switched over to YouTube, and pulled up one of my favorite cartoon series, the amazing "Gravity Falls" by Alex Hirsch.  This was one of the more interesting episodes, the finale! Bill Cipher, the triangular antagonist was on the verge of world domination. The last hope for the band of survivors, was a prophetic wheel, that held the secrets to stop Bill from his reign of terror. Suddenly, inspiration hit me.  This wheel was perfect. It encompassed something that I truly love (Gravity Falls), it was circular (obviously), and divided into equal parts (tenths). So I put together a recreation of the wheel. Originally, I was thinking of hand drawing the face on paper, and using the pre-existing frame to support the face, but then I released how much cooler it would look if it was made out of cardboard. There would be no ...

One of the big clocks we have fell from its nail on the wall. The frame broke, and was pretty useless as a decoration piece. My parents were going to throw it away, so I asked if they would let me take it apart, just to see how it works. The frame and the actual clock mechanism are two separate pieces (pictures below). I opened up the mechanism to find a electromagnet that pulsed a magnetic gear around an axis. After later research, I learned that this was timed by the vibration of a quarts crystal, which was located in the micro circuit board. This pulse turned a gear a quarter of a rotation every second. The gear ratio was reduced down to 1/360th of a rotation for the minute hand. This turn the center axle that spins the minute hand. The rotation is then further geared down to 1/43200 of a rotation for the hour hand, which turns the outer axle (again, pictures attached below). The frame was broken, but the actual mechanism is still intact. This spurred a thought. I have always wanted...