mechanical clock

10 Articles

Hybrid Mechanical Clock Shows It Both Ways

April 1, 2025 by 16 Comments

After seeing some of the interesting clock builds we’ve featured recently, [shiura] decided to throw their hat in the ring and sent us word about their incredible 3D printed hybrid clock that combines analog and digital styles.

While the multiple rotating rings might look complex from the front, the ingenious design behind the mechanism is powered by a single stepper motor. Its operation is well explained in the video below, but the short version is that each ring has a hook that pushes its neighboring ring over to the next digit once it has completed a full rotation. So the rightmost ring rotates freely through 0 to 9, then flips the 10-minute ring to the next number before starting its journey again. This does mean that the minute hand on the analog display makes a leap forward every 10 minutes rather than move smoothly, but we think its a reasonable compromise.

Beyond the 28BYJ-48 geared stepper motor and its driver board, the only other electronics in the build is a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C6 microcontroller. The WiFi-enabled MCU is able to pull the current time down from the Internet, but keep it mind it takes quite awhile for the mechanism to move all the wheels; you can see the process happen at 60x speed in the video.

If you’re looking to recreate this beauty, the trickiest part of this whole build might be the 3D print itself, as the design appears to make considerable use of multi-material printing. While it’s not impossible to build the clock with a traditional printer, you’ll have to accept losing some surface detail on the face and performing some well-timed filament swaps.

[shirua] tells us they were inspired to send their timepiece in after seeing the post about the sliding clock that just went out earlier in the week.

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Something’s Rotating In The State Of Denmark: A Clock

January 4, 2023 by 15 Comments

If you visit the Copenhagen City Hall, you’ll see an ornate mechanical clock. By itself, this is unremarkable, of course. There are plenty of ornate clocks in city halls around the world, but this one has a fascinating backstory that starts with a locksmith named Jan Jens Olsen. Unfortunately, Jens didn’t actually complete the clock before his death. It would take 12 years to put together the 15,448 individual parts. However, he did manage to see most of the clock that he had been designing for 50 years put together.

Jens was 60 when he started constructing the clock, but the story starts when he was only 25. In Strasbourg, the young locksmith saw an astronomical clock with a perpetual calendar in a cathedral. He was fascinated and returned several times to study the mechanism. Around the age of 30, Jens had moved to watchmaking and had a keen interest in astronomy — he was a founding member of the Danish Astronomical Society. Perhaps it was the combination of these two interests that made it inevitable that he would want to build a precise astronomically-correct clock.

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Quirky Complicated Clock Piques Constructor’s Curiosity

July 19, 2022 by 2 Comments
The Clock that served as inspiration for the garberPark Clock

Have you ever observed the project of another hacker and thought to yourself “I have got to have one of those!”? If so, you’re in good company with hacker [garberPark], the maker of the unusual chain clock seen in the video below the break.

While on a stroll past the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center in Minneapolis, MN, [garberPark] was transfixed by the clock seen to the right here. In the clock, two motors each drive a chain that has numbers attached to it, and the number at the top displays the current time. It wasn’t long before [garberPark] observed his own lack of such a clock. So they did what any hacker will do: they made their own version!

Using an ESP8266, and Arduino, and some other basic electronics, they put together a horizontal interpretation of the clock they saw. Rather than being continuous rotation, limit switches keep things in line while the ESP8266’s NTP keep things in time. Salvaged scanner stepper motors provide locomotion, and what appear to be bicycle cranks and chains work in harmony with cutoff license plates to display the current time- but only if there’s somebody around to observe it; A very nice touch and great attention to detail!

If you enjoyed this, you’ll love the Sprocket and Chain clock we featured a few months back.

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Building A Pendulum Clock Out Of Lego

March 9, 2022 by 10 Comments

Pendulum clocks aren’t used quite as often these days as their cumbersome mechanics and timekeeping abilities have long been outshone by electronic alternatives. However, they’re still fun and they do work, so [PuzzLEGO] set about building a working example with Lego.

The rear view reveals the escapement built from Lego Technic parts.

The core of the clock is the escapement, a linkage which the pendulum can only turn in one direction. As the pendulum swings once per second, it lets the escapement gear turn one notch forward at a time, turning the gears of the clock which drive the hands. It’s powered with a falling weight in the form of a drink bottle full of water, which turns the gears of the clock via a chain.

The clock can only run for approximately an hour, so it’s set up with a second and minute hand instead of the more usual minute and hour hand. However, with the pendulum tuned to the appropriate length and the weight fitted, it pleasantly ticks and tocks the seconds away.

We’ve seen other great builds from [PuzzLEGO] before, too, like this inventive Rubik’s Cube build. Video after the break.

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Racing The Old Clock

December 23, 2020 by 6 Comments

[Keenan Rebera] recently found himself with an old racing clock (a chronoix cc3000) left behind by a roommate. How the roommate obtained such a clock seems murky at best, but undeterred [Keenan] set to work bringing the clock to life with Bluetooth functionality. The mechanical nature of the digits provided a satisfying auditory click, making it a good candidate for some upgrading. The new brain transplant is the venerable ESP32 with an RTC for good measure. He created a custom PCB with QWIC connectors to daisy chain together the driver boards together. Each PCB has four TBD62083 for driving the digits, two MCP expanders to increase the address space. This allows the ESP32 to address all the various segments over I2C. By soldering different pads together, he can change the address of each MCP, giving a maximum of 16 digits (9 possible MCP’s each driving 2 digits).

A handsomely designed app accompanies the clock, making updating the RTC and setting the timezone a breeze. Currently, it is displaying a count down to the time when 2020 is officially over. While 2020 will certainly go down in the books as a tumultuous year, it was a great year for DIY clocks at Hackaday. Just in the past few weeks, we’ve seen big LED workshop clocks, esoteric domino clocks, and beautiful clocks that double as works of art. Come 2021, we’re quite confident that [Keenan] will still have a gorgeous clock on his wall ticking and clicking away.
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Laser-Cut Clock Uses Planetary Gear

March 1, 2015 by 6 Comments

[wyojustin] was trying to think of projects he could do that would take advantage of some of the fabrication tech that’s become available to the average hobbyist. Even though he doesn’t have any particular interest in clocks, [wyojustin] discovered that he could learn a lot about the tools he has access to by building a clock.

[wyojustin] first made a clock based off of a design by [Brian Wagner] that we featured a while back. The clock uses an idler wheel to move the hour ring so it doesn’t need a separate hour hand. After he built his first design, [wyojustin] realized he could add a planetary gear that could move an hour hand as well. After a bit of trial and error with gear ratios, he landed on a design that worked.

The clock’s movement is a stepper motor that’s driven by an Arduino. Although [wyojustin] isn’t too happy with the appearance of his electronics, the drive setup seems to work pretty well. Check out [wyojustin]’s site to see the other clock builds he’s done (including a version with a second hand), and you can peruse all of his design files on GitHub.

Looking for more clock-building inspiration? Check out some other awesome clock builds we’ve featured before.

Mechanical Clock Relies On Marbles To Tick

May 28, 2014 by 24 Comments

As fun as micro-controllers and RTCs are, sometimes it’s truly fascinating to see a completely mechanical clock. Using only gravity this Pendulum Marble Clock (German version) by [Turnvater Janosch] runs for 12 hours at a time and has an accuracy error of less than one second per day!

It works by raising a 2.5kg weight which sinks approximately 1 meter during that 12 hours. A series of steel ball bearings count the minutes, 5 minute increments, and hours. Every minute one ball is released on the track — when the track fills up, trap doors open releasing the balls to the next level. The first level is minutes, the second, 5 minutes, and the third, hours.

The entire thing is made out of wood, plastic gears, brass and steel wire, and an old flat iron (although we’re really not too sure what that’s used for…)

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