We love clocks, but we especially love unusual timepieces that aren’t just about showing the hour of the day. [Simone Giertz] built a flip clock moon phase tracker for a friend.
While in Egypt for Cairo Maker Faire, [Giertz] and [dina Amin] found some old flip clocks at a flea market and had to have them. [Amin] mentioned wanting to make a moon phase tracker with one, and [Giertz] decided to try her hand at making her own version. A side quest in more comfortable flying is included with the price of admission, but the real focus is the process of figuring out how to replicate the flip clocks original mechanism in a different size and shape.
[Giertz] cut out 30 semi-circle flaps from polystyrene and then affixed vinyl cut-outs to the flaps. The instructions for the assembly suggest that this might not be the best way to do it, and that printing stickers to affix to the flaps might work better since the cut vinyl turned out pretty fiddly. We really like the part where she built a grid jig to determine the optimal placement of the beams to keep the flaps in the right position after a disheartening amount of difficulties doing it in a more manual way. Her approach of letting it rest for twenty minutes before coming back to it is something you might find helpful in your own projects.
Best of all, if you want to build your own, the files are available for the flip moon station on the Yetch website. You’ll have to come up with your own method to drive it though as that isn’t in the files from what we saw.
I like the idea and great that she put design files for download.
Unfortunately, this is not a clock, but “just” the display. Having it sit on the shelf and look nice – okay. But is will show the wrong phase of the moon most of the days. This is rather distracting than helpful.
It should flip daily automatically, sync with the local moon. An indication would be helpful to know if and when the moon is up or not. Maybe a black ring that goes around, with a white dot on it? Just rotate it, with horizon being the middle? Visually “up or down” and being able to distinguish “soon to be up” vs “not up fit quite some time”
I thought this too, but I think it’d be cool to keep it super minimal. The phase of the moon is the same everywhere and not affected by daylight savings, so once you dial it to the current phase, a simple quartz clock could keep it correct for decades, even if you moved house.
A stopped moon phase clock is still right once a month…
Twice a month, unless it’s showing a full or new moon.
Err, no, continued thinking shows that a waxing and waning quarter are mirror images, and thus not the same.
Now to link it to wttr.in/moon and have it update in real time.
First thing I noticed when on my first trip closer to equator, is that the moon was sideways. It was weird sensation.
But just try standing on it!
FF to time index 9:54 for main design and build.
I’ve been noodling over a moon phase display for a while. This is one of those “Why didn’t I think of this?” moments. This one is in the build queue. Thanks Simone.
Mila Jovovich shows an interesting concept of a lunar clock in the latest of her movies In the lost lands.
Spending 14 hours on a plane without a respirator is… a choice