An orrery is a clockwork model of the solar system, demonstrating the machinations of the planets traveling around the sun in a sublime pattern of epicycles. A tellurion is a subset of the orrery, showing the rotation of the Earth around the sun, and the orbit of the moon around the Earth. [HuidongT] created his own tellurion out of laser-cut parts and just a few bits of copper tubes and bearings.
This project was originally inspired by the holzmechanik, a tellurion constructed from plywood gears and brass tube. [HuidongT] saw a few shortcomings in this project: the Earth didn’t spin and the moon didn’t orbit with its natural five-degree inclination. [Huidong]’s tellurion would have these features and include an illuminated sun, demonstrate the change of the seasons, and show lunar and solar eclipses.
While there was a bit of math involved in figuring out the gearing, it’s not much: the Earth would go around the sun every 365.25 days, the moon would go around the Earth every 27.32 days, and there is a difference between sidereal and solar time. A quick script made quick work of the math, and anyone can easily find tools to create gears given a diameter and the number of teeth.
The fabrication of this tellurion was made with acrylic on a laser cutter with a handful of 3D printed parts. The electronics are simple enough — just a motor and a few LEDs, and the completed project works well enough. You can check out a video of the tellurium below.
whoah, that’s a lot of gears! The wobble is distracting but i’ve watched it a few times to see the phases of the moon and the seasons change. I can see myself doing this with half spheres and no automation just to play with it. Tack up post-its on the walls around me for the “fixed” stars and constellations.
What would prevent the wobble, how could that be fixed?
Please look up Clickspring on Youtube.
I love it. Well, maybe not that jerky moon so much. Get that worked out and it would be great.
I am sure version 1.2 will use anti-backlash gears and some Teflon white-grease…
;-)
An orrery is a
clockworkmodel of the solar system…I like the original definition better. A model of the solar system that was fixed and didn’t move wouldn’t be an orrery. The word clockwork implies motion coordinated in precise ratios.
Hmm… is it weird that I haven’t noticed how our moon bounces around the sky? :-P
That’s because you don’t drink enough alcohol.
Pitch Black had a interesting one.
Like it or not we are all Tellurians.
Anyone got any suggestions for good value acrylic laser cutting services in the UK (or with cheap postage to the UK)?
search for a local hacker space, they nearly always have a laser cutter.