clickety clackety clock
January 8, 2025 10:36 AM Subscribe
An electromechanical seven-segment display. Single link youtube, fourteen minutes. Three-dee printing, hand-wound electromagnets, a couple of design iterations, and a result which satisfies even if you can see some tweaks for the next version.
Technology Connections also has a great vid of a similar concept.
posted by alex_skazat at 1:43 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by alex_skazat at 1:43 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Very nice. PCBWay seems to be a really great company...but I wish there was a domestic version in other continents. Of course selfishly I mean North America. I don't think such a thing exists!
posted by TreeRooster at 2:45 PM on January 8
posted by TreeRooster at 2:45 PM on January 8
There are small run quick turn-around PCB fabs in North America, but not at those prices.
posted by Horkus at 3:57 PM on January 8
posted by Horkus at 3:57 PM on January 8
That was satisfying. All the clickity!
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:07 PM on January 8
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:07 PM on January 8
In a comment, he mentions he did this during high school exams. Is this guy really a high school student??
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:35 PM on January 8
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:35 PM on January 8
"… he mentions he did this during high school exams … "
In his Jan 2024 profile on Instructables he writes: "I am a soon-to-be first-year mechatronic engineering student from Australia."
So, it seems that he well could have been in high school at the time he built the display system.
posted by bz at 5:36 PM on January 8
In his Jan 2024 profile on Instructables he writes: "I am a soon-to-be first-year mechatronic engineering student from Australia."
So, it seems that he well could have been in high school at the time he built the display system.
posted by bz at 5:36 PM on January 8
There are small run quick turn-around PCB fabs in North America, but not at those prices.
Yeah, I always think WTF when I see some massive like 10" x 10" $hundreds+ OSH Park PCB in someone's hobby project like the bespoke A2000 motherboards or the sunflower iMac M1 motherboard conversion. Like, bless him, Laen does good work, and sometimes the difference between a 4-5 day domestic turnaround is worth the price, but the last time I put in an order (which was a few years ago), the Chinese vendors (pcbway/jlcpcb, at least) with like $30 DHL Express shipping can get it to you even quicker in some price brackets, which is kind of wild.
posted by Kyol at 6:20 PM on January 8
Yeah, I always think WTF when I see some massive like 10" x 10" $hundreds+ OSH Park PCB in someone's hobby project like the bespoke A2000 motherboards or the sunflower iMac M1 motherboard conversion. Like, bless him, Laen does good work, and sometimes the difference between a 4-5 day domestic turnaround is worth the price, but the last time I put in an order (which was a few years ago), the Chinese vendors (pcbway/jlcpcb, at least) with like $30 DHL Express shipping can get it to you even quicker in some price brackets, which is kind of wild.
posted by Kyol at 6:20 PM on January 8
That was amazing. I went into it thinking, cool I might be able to print one of these for myself, and came out thinking, dammit now I want my own CNC mill.
posted by slogger at 9:32 AM on January 9
posted by slogger at 9:32 AM on January 9
This winter break I taught myself Autodesk Fusion and designed and built a 3D-printed mending loom (a.k.a. a darning loom) using an old Prusa that our department inherited from the fancy maker lab.
You can get mending looms really cheap on Amazon et al., but the ones on Etsy that look like they are handmade by actual makers are expensive, so this was a clear case of "Why buy it on Amazon for $5 when you can make it yourself with 80 hours of work and $50 in supplies and new equipment?"
I think the most satisfying part of the project was the designing and using a custom 3D-printed jig to bend wires for the hooks. I went through about 6 prints of the jig. For the first two, I tried to skimp on materials (and printing time) by making them quite thin, but they were too weak and broke. Then the rest all had small, iterative changes to make it possible to get the rounded hook actually round and the straight parts actually (more or less) straight. They're not hand-wound-solenoids-cool, but they have been described by my crafty friends as "very satisfying."
I was thinking I should put the pattern for the loom up on some of the sharing sites. Maybe a Projects post?
Anyway, A++++++ would spend winter break this way again; now I must go order more filament.
posted by BrashTech at 12:03 PM on January 9
You can get mending looms really cheap on Amazon et al., but the ones on Etsy that look like they are handmade by actual makers are expensive, so this was a clear case of "Why buy it on Amazon for $5 when you can make it yourself with 80 hours of work and $50 in supplies and new equipment?"
I think the most satisfying part of the project was the designing and using a custom 3D-printed jig to bend wires for the hooks. I went through about 6 prints of the jig. For the first two, I tried to skimp on materials (and printing time) by making them quite thin, but they were too weak and broke. Then the rest all had small, iterative changes to make it possible to get the rounded hook actually round and the straight parts actually (more or less) straight. They're not hand-wound-solenoids-cool, but they have been described by my crafty friends as "very satisfying."
I was thinking I should put the pattern for the loom up on some of the sharing sites. Maybe a Projects post?
Anyway, A++++++ would spend winter break this way again; now I must go order more filament.
posted by BrashTech at 12:03 PM on January 9
Someone at work has built himself a split flap departure board to show the trains at his local station. It's about 2m wide and he has it on his wall; the neighbours occasionally complain about the noise it makes. (And being a super train nerd, it shows the headcodes rather than the destination)
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:23 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:23 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
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posted by Wretch729 at 12:35 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]