In a world deprived of stock hardware other than #6-32 bolts and sheets and sheets of acrylic, [Lawrence Kesteloot] took it upon himself to design and build a laser-cut pendulum clock. No Pricey CAD programs? No Problem. In a world where many fancy CAD tools can auto-generate gear models, [Lawrence] went back to first principles and wrote scripts to autogenerate the gear profiles. Furthermore, not only can these scripts export SVG files for the entire model for easy laser cutting, they can also render a 3D model within the browser using Javascript.
Given the small selection of materials, the entire project is a labor of love. Even the video (after the break) glosses over the careful selection of bearings, bolt-hole spacing, and time-sensitive gear ratios, each of which may be an easy macro in other CAD programs that [Lawrence], in this case, needed to add himself.
Finally, the entire project is open source and up for download on the Githubs. It’s not every day we can build ourselves a pendulum clock with a simple command-line-incantation to
make cut
Thanks for the tip, [Bartgrantham]!
Would’ve been cool to have colored LEDs lighting up the gears, similar to the colors shown in the 3D drawing… :)
nice work and beautiful documentation – for my taste, this is lacking a little on the “clock” side. It seems to be inaccurate and hard to read.
It’s inaccurate because of the length of the pendulum, but obviously that can be adjusted.
I would be really great, if someone replicate Antikythera Mechanism in a similar way. ;)
If memory serves correct, it had quite a few fragile gears, something more fit to do with brass, unless you make it massive.
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I’m reminded of the CAD modelling and rendering and 3d printing and milling that I did at the CS department at the University of Utah in the late 1980s. We used a locally grown research CAD and modelling system named Alpha-One. All models were written in Lisp, as was the modeller itself. Absolutely nothing I have used since has approached the power and simplicity of working with Alpha One.
The famous “Utah Teapot” (google it), yeah, that was done in Alpha One
How prone to wear is acrylic in an application like this?