Printing A Clock Fit For A Pope

September 17, 2026 by Tyler August 9 Comments

When it comes to clockwork, there is a spectrum — some people love the ticking, and some people hate it, while most fall into the broad middle of indifference. Once upon a time, Pope Alexander VII fell into the “hate it” category, and commissioned a silent timepiece from [Fratelli Campani] in 1656. Three hundred seventy years later, [Many Vices] sought out to re-create the mechanism in extruded plastic thanks to the efforts of watchmaker [Carlo G. Croce], who documented his brass recreation in this PDF file and his own videos.

While the archaeology of recreating the mechanism from old photos is interesting, the mechanism itself is the real showpiece. The secret, as you might be able to tell from the photographs, is an eccentric crank escapement that provides continuous movement rather than the traditional anchor escapement whose periodic movements creates the distinctive ‘tick’ and ‘tock’. [Many] tests both in his video so you can hear the difference and see how much power is wasted with the crank escapement, which doesn’t keep going very long.

We wonder if carefully tuning the flywheel he’s using to match the frequency of the swinging pendulum would help a little there. Likewise, his linear-rail-based spring pendulum modification — though it does look awesome and we’d love a train-themed clock using it — doesn’t come close to providing the runtime of traditional clockwork. That’s probably why the anchor escapement persisted for centuries, even if some people and Popes couldn’t stand the tick-tock.

We’ve featured a lot of different 3D printed clocks, from wholly mechanical to electromechanical digital units to even ones based on D20s , so it’s hard to believe that not much more than a decade back, printing a mechanical clock was considered a challenge. Time marches on whether we can hear it or not.

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A Music Box With A Very Modern Heart

July 27, 2026 by Jenny List 3 Comments

A ballerina music box is a charming ornament, but it remains one that is limited by its mechanism to a very short performance. [ShielaDixon] has one, and decided to make so much more with it.

The music box mechanism is a simple clockwork motor with a comb that’s picked by a drum to make the notes. Her box retains the mechanism to give the ballerina her performance, but replaces the comb with a microcontroller and audio channel. This is no mere MP3 player though, instead it’s a music box in itself. Each note of the comb was sampled, and the board plays them just as the music box would, under instruction from a text file containing the music. The repertoire can now go on for far longer, and contain many more compositions.

We like this hack, for its effectiveness, and for its recreation of the music box rather than simply playing a recording. Meanwhile if you recognise [ShieldDixon] from these pages, we’ve in the past featured another musical project of hers, a MIDI recorder.

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Tiny Tellurium Orbits Atop A Pencil

June 21, 2025 by Tyler August 7 Comments

We like scale models here, but how small can you shrink the very large? If you’re [Frans], it’s pretty small indeed: his Micro Tellurium fits the orbit of the Earth on top of an ordinary pencil. While you’ll often see models of Earth, Moon and Sun’s orbital relationship called “Orrery”, that’s word should technically be reserved for models of the solar system, inclusive of at least the classical planets, like [Frans]’s Gentleman’s Orrery that recently graced these pages. When it’s just the Earth, Moon and Sun, it’s a Tellurium.

The whole thing is made out of brass, save for the ball-bearings for the Earth and Moon. Construction was done by a combination of manual milling and CNC machining, as you can see in the video below. It is a very elegant device, and almost functional: the Earth-Moon system rotates, simulating the orbit of the moon when you turn the ring to make the Earth orbit the sun. This is accomplished by carefully-constructed rods and a rubber O-ring.

Unfortunately, it seems [Franz] had to switch to a thicker axle than originally planned, so the tiny moon does not orbit Earth at the correct speed compared to the solar orbit: it’s about half what it ought to be. That’s unfortunate, but perhaps that’s the cost one pays when chasing smallness. It might be possible to fix in a future iteration, but right now [Franz] is happy with how the project turned out, and we can’t blame him; it’s a beautiful piece of machining.

It should be noted that there is likely no tellurium in this tellurium — the metal and the model share the same root, but are otherwise unrelated. We have featured hacks with that element, though.

Thanks to [Franz] for submitting this hack. Don’t forget: the tips line is always open, and we’re more than happy to hear you toot your own horn, or sing the praises of someone else’s work. Continue reading “Tiny Tellurium Orbits Atop A Pencil” →

Open Source Watch Movement Really Ticks All The Boxes

June 3, 2025 by Tyler August 32 Comments

When you think of open-source hardware, you probably think of electronics and maker tools– RepRap, Arduino, Adafruit, et cetera. Yet open source is an ethos and license, and is in no way limited to electronics. The openmovement foundation is a case in point– a watch case, to be specific. The “movement” in Openmovement is a fully open-source and fully mechanical watch movement.

Openmovement has already released STEP files of OM10 the first movement developed by the group. (You do need to sign up to download, however.) They say the design is meant to be highly serviceable and modular, with a robust construction suited for schools and new watchmakers. The movement uses a “Swiss pallets escapement” that runs at 3.5 Hz / 25,200 vph. (We think that’s an odd translation of lever escapement, but if you’re a watchmaker let us know in the comments.) An OM20 is apparently in the works, as well, but it looks like only OM10 has been built from what we can see.

If you don’t have the equipment to finely machine brass from the STEP files, Openmovement is running a crowdfunding campaign to produce kits of the OM10, which you can still get in on until the seventh of June.

If you’re wondering what it takes to make a mechanical watch from scratch, we covered that last year. Spoiler: it doesn’t look easy. Just assembling the tiny parts of an OM10 kit would seem daunting to most of us. That might be why most of the watches we’ve covered over the years weren’t mechanical, but at least they tend to be open source, too.

Planetary Poetry With A Tiny Digital Core

June 2, 2025 by Heidi Ulrich 7 Comments

Some hacks just tickle the brain in a very particular way. They’re, for a change, not overly engineered; they’re just elegant, anachronistic, and full of mischief. That’s exactly what [Frans] pulls off with A Gentleman’s Orrery, a tiny, simple clockwork solar system. Composed of shiny brass and the poise of 18th-century craftsmanship, it hides a modern secret: there’s barely any clockwork inside. You can build it yourself.

Peek behind the polished face and you’ll find a mechanical sleight of hand. This isn’t your grandfather’s gear-laden planetarium. Instead of that, it operates on a pared-down system that relies on a stepper motor, driving planetary movement through a 0.8 mm axle nested inside a 1 mm brass tube. That micro-mechanical coupling, aided by a couple of bevel gears, manages to rotate the Moon just right, including its orientation. Most of the movement relies on clever design, not gear cascades. The real wizardry happens under the hood: a 3D-printed chassis cradles an ESP32-C6, a TTP223 capacitive touch module, STSPIN220 driver, and even a reed switch with magnetic charging.

You can even swap out the brass for a stone shell where the full moon acts as the touch control. It’s tactile, it’s poetic, and therefore, a nice hack for a weekend project. To build it yourself, read [Frans]’ Instructable.

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Make Anything Clockwork With This Ridiculous Stick-On Device

March 30, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 38 Comments

Clockwork devices were popular right up until motors and electronics proved far more capable in just about every way. However, there’s something charming about a device you can wind up to make it do its thing. To recreate this feeling on modern technology, [Kousuke Saito] created a clockwork winder that you can fit to a wide variety of modern appliances.

The design is simple. It consists of a motor which is run from a battery. The two components are installed in a 3D printed housing with a magnet on the bottom. When the device is attached to a metal surface, a switch is activated which turns the motor on. The motor is attached to a large printed “winding key” that would be familiar to anyone who has used a clockwork toy or timepiece before. If the magnetic manner of activation is familiar, you might recall it from [Kousuke Saito’s] chirping cicada project.

It’s a silly build, to be sure. Regardless, when placed on certain appliances, like a simple fan, the motion really does imply that the clockwork winder is connected to the mechanism inside. It’s a falsehood, of course, but a joyous one.

We’ve featured some real clockwork hardware before, too, like these amazing time locks.

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Taking Another Swing At A 3D Printed Eye Of Agamotto

June 15, 2022 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

Three years ago, [Enza3D] put together a 3D printed version of the Eye of Agamotto as seen in Marvel’s Doctor Strange. It was a good looking prop, but there was definitely some room for improvement in terms of screen accuracy and scale. With a new Strange film now in theaters, it seemed a good a time as any to revisit the design and tighten up some loose ends.

As you might expect for something that’s supposed to be magic, the internal mechanism required to get all of the moving parts going is quite complex. Not only does the iris need to open and close, but the rings need to spin at different speeds to recreate the effect seen in the film. Impressively, there’s not a single line of code or a microcontroller to be seen here — everything is done with a carefully designed set of a gears and a single N20 motor.

[Enza3D] tried to simplify the construction of the clockwork-like mechanism as much as possible compared to the earlier version, and made some nice improvements like unifying the size of the screws and shafts used in the assembly so there’s no danger of using the wrong part. Despite their size and fine pitch, all of the gears can be printed on a standard FDM desktop printer, in this case a Prusa Mini.

That said, [Enza3D] did switch over to resin prints for the outside of the prop. Incidentally, in another clever design decision, the outer ornamental case is completely separate from the internal powered mechanism. That lets you easily take the unit apart for maintenance or repairs without risking damage to your finish work. Check out the video after the break for a breakdown of how the device is assembled, as well as some tips on how to make shiny pieces of plastic look like aged metal.

Truth be told, if we were working on our own Doctor Strange cosplay, our first pick would still be the ridiculously awesome POV spellcasting gun we covered back in 2018 — but this beauty comes in at a close second for sure.

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