Wine Glass Time Keeper

January 16, 2010 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

We’ve seen a glut of time-keeping projects lately. We guess time was the original motivator for technology so we’re okay with it (but we’re not calling ourselves Clockaday quite yet). This clock, or more appropriately this timer, is a homemade hourglass that [Andrei] put together. The finished look is simple but he put some real time into its production.

The glass portion is a combination of two wine glasses. He removed the stems, ground the bottoms flat, then drilled holes to allow the sand to pass. He used plumbers putty around the top of the upturned reservoir to create a temporary bowl of water which cooled the glass during drilling. This prevented cracking by keeping the friction generated heat at bay. Working with the glass took a total of around five hours.

To assemble, he epoxied the two wine glasses together, routed out a ring in the wood bases for the lips, and used dowels to connect the two ends. [Andrei] concluded that the gentle slope at the bottom of the wine glasses is not the ideal shape as some sand can get stuck in them. Perhaps champagne flutes for his next build? At any rate, we think it’s a unique, non-automated hourglass build.

Volt Meter Clock

January 16, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 18 Comments

The Volt meter clock continues our recent slew of interesting clock projects. Though considerably easier to read than the resistor clock, it is in the same frame of mind. Set up to look like the face of an analog volt meter, it almost looks like something official or scientific. Since [Jon] couldn’t simply drop a clock mechanism in, he used a PIC microcontroller. The circuit is pretty simple, but he deserves some credit just for the unique layout.

Know Your Resistors… Tell The Time

January 15, 2010 by Mike Szczys 32 Comments

[Darren] built a clock that uses a resistor to display the time. Well, it really uses a model of a resistor. This extremely tardy entry in the Hackaday design challenge houses all of the electronics on a PCB the size of a business card. Four RGB LEDs shine up through holes in the wooden base to light bands on an acrylic tube. The colors correspond to the values used in the Resistor Color Code. In the picture above the clock is displaying 5:26 (that’s supposed to be a red band but the camera didn’t pick it up too well). The band in the center fades up over 60 seconds to signify AM, and down to show PM.

It may be late, but it’s a clever design. It looks sleek and it uses no buttons for an interface. [Darren] sourced the LEDs themselves as light sensors to display the date, and enter time setting mode.

Google Bike Hack, Quick And Dirty

January 14, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

Many of the projects we post are so well thought out and engineered, they could hardly be called “hacks”. This one, however, falls neatly into the hack category. [Dave] wanted his very own exercise bike hooked to Google maps. Instead of setting up a control system and writing software to control Google maps, he simply hacked a USB game controller. He wired a magnetic switch directly into the board, where the “up” button is. Then he mounted the switch so that it would be triggered each time he rotated the pedal. Though he only has the forward movement done right now, it would be pretty easy to set up a couple more switches at the base of the handle bar for left and right.

While the experience may not be quite as nice as the more complicated one, aside from head tracking, it isn’t that far off.

Weather Clock

January 11, 2010 by Mike Szczys 46 Comments

[Sean_Carney] build this clock that tells the weather instead of the time. The two hands display the current conditions and the temperature. Forty below zero seems amazingly cold if you’re on the Fahrenheit scale but [Sean’s] from Winnipeg so he’s operating on the Celsius side of things.

Two servos move the hands to match the data scraped off of the Internet. An Arduino does the scraping with the help of an Ethernet shield. This reminds us of the Harry Potter clock that tells a persons location.

[via Flickr]

Steampunk Nixie Clock

January 11, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

This single-digit Nixie clock is a thing of beauty. You might hate Steampunk or you might love it, but you have to respect projects where the design gets equal (or more) consideration compared to the function. The electronics used in the project build upon an existing single Nixie design. Instead of hiding the guts inside the clock the PCB has been laid out to augment the design. We think [Blue Metal] hit it out of the park with this one!

Cold Climate Solar Water Heater

January 11, 2010 by Mike Szczys 30 Comments

Here’s a solar water heater setup that augments your home’s water heater instead of replacing it. The system monitors a solar collector panel on the roof for temperature. If the temperature is warm enough, a photo voltaic cell powered pump circulates cold water through the system. The heated water returns to the top of the home’s water heater. Unlike the warm-climate solar heater we saw earlier, this one can withstand freezing because it uses silicone tubing in the collector.

[Thanks Marius]