Get To The Games On Time With This Ancient-Style Waterclock

December 3, 2025 by Tyler August 2 Comments

One easy way to make a very accurate clock is with a WiFi-enabled microcontroller like an ESP32 and a display: set up NTP, and you’ll never be off by more than a minute. This water clock project by [Liebregts] is not like that — there are no electronics to speak of, and if the clock is ever in sync to within a single minute, well, we’d be surprised.

We’re impressed to see it working regardless. Sure, it’s not exactly high-tech; the floating siphon mechanism [Liebregts] is using to get a steady flow out of the main reservoir dates back to 250 BC. On the other hand, since this style of time keeper has been out of fashion since the fall of Rome, [Liebregts] couldn’t just grab something off GitHub or ask ChatGPT to design it for them. This is real human engineering. The reservoir is even scaled to the four-hour timing of [Liebregts] workday — it gets refilled at lunch along with its maker.

The water clock in all its glory, plus diagrammatic labels.

In a clever build detail, the floating siphon tube also holds a pointer to an hour indicator. For minutes, his mechanism seems unique, though it’s related to another ancient trick, the Pythagorean cup. Pythagoras’s devious cup had a hidden siphon that spilled its contents if you filled it beyond a set level, and so does the secondary reservoir of [Liebregts] water clock.

Since the secondary reservoir is linked to a counterweight with a pivot, it goes up and down over the course of approximately 5 minutes — but rather than linking that to another linear indicator, [Liebregts] is using that mechanism to advance a saw-toothed gear that is marked with 5-12 in analog-clock fashion for a touch of modernity. See it in action in the demo video below.

That last part might confuse a time traveler from Ancient Rome or Greece, but they’d instantly recognize this creation as a clock, which many modern observers might not. Still, once they learn to read it you can be sure that [Liebergts]’s friends will never be late to a gladiator fight again — and not just because Constantine banned them in 325 AD. Apparently nobody listened to that ban anyway.

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Hydroelectric Generator Gets Power From Siphoning

January 21, 2025 by Bryan Cockfield 42 Comments

Siphons are one of those physics phenomena that, like gyroscopes, non-Newtonian fluids, and electricity, seem almost magical. Thanks to atmospheric pressure, simply filling a tube with liquid and placing the end of the tube below the liquid level of a container allows it to flow against gravity, over a barrier, and down into another container without any extra energy inputs once the siphon is started. They’re not just tricks, though; siphons have practical applications as well, such as in siphon-powered hydroelectric turbine.

This is an iteration of [Beyond the Print]’s efforts to draw useful energy from a local dam with an uneconomic amount of water pressure and/or volume for a typical hydroelectric power station. One of his earlier attempts involved a water wheel but this siphon-based device uses a more efficient impeller design instead, and it also keeps the generator dry as well. Using 3″ PVC piping to channel the siphon, as well as a short length of thinner pipe to attach a shop vac for priming the siphon, water is drawn from the reservoir, up the pipe, and then down through the impeller which spins a small DC generator.

This design is generating about 9 V open-circuit, and we’d assume there’s enough power available to charge a phone or power a small microcontroller device. However, there’s a ton of room for improvement here. The major problem [Beyond the Print] is currently experiencing is getting air into the system and having the siphon broken, which he’s solved temporarily by adding a bucket at the outflow. This slows down the water though, so perhaps with any air leaks mitigated the power generation capabilities will be greatly increased.

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Steampunk Water Thief Clock Steals Attention, Too

November 8, 2019 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

The funny thing about clocks is that the more intriguing they are to look at, the more precious time is wasted. This steampunk clepsydra is no exception. A clepsydra, or water thief clock is an ancient design that takes many forms. Any clock that uses the inflow or outflow of water to measure time could be considered a clepsydra, even if it uses electronics like this steampunk version.

[DickB1]’s sticky-fingered timepiece works by siphoning water from the lower chamber into the upper chamber on a one-minute cycle. An MSP430 and a MOSFET control the 12 V diaphragm pump. As the water level rises in the upper chamber, a float in the siphon pushes a lever that moves a ratchet and pawl that’s connected to the minute hand. The hour hand is driven by gears. A hidden magnet and Hall effect sensor help keep the clock clicking at one-minute intervals.

Although [DickB1] doesn’t tell you exactly how to replicate this clock, he offers enough information to get started in designing your own. Take a second to check it out after the break.

Most of the thieving around here is done for the joules, so here’s a joule thief running a clock.

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Early Electromechanical Circuits

February 1, 2017 by Steven Dufresne 25 Comments

In the days before semiconductor diodes, transistors, or even vacuum tubes, mechanical means were used for doing many of the same things. But there’s still plenty of fun to be had in using those mechanical means today, as [Manuel] did recently with his relay computer. This post is a walk through some circuits that used those mechanical solutions before the invention of the more electronic and less mechanical means came along.

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Aquarium Water Exchanger Built From Keurig Parts

March 21, 2012 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

We keep seeing commercials for those Keurig coffee makers that use a plastic pod of grounds to brew just one cup of coffee. We’re pretty sure this is a fad, and absolutely sure that the extra packaging created by brewing with this method is a waste. But to each his own. [Danman1453] has two of the devices. One he bought, the other is a warranty replacement. He decided to scrap the malfunctioning unit and see if he could put it to good use. What he ended up with is the aquarium pumping system you see above.

It is conceived as tidier way to swap out the water in the fish tank. He had been using tubing to siphon the water, but found he almost always made a mess. This system uses an air pump to prime the water pump by pressurizing the tank which forces water into the lines. Once the water pump is primed he switches over to that for the rest of the work. He used an old metal tool box as an enclosure, using the cover to mount the push-buttons which route power to various components when pressed. Many of the parts were transplants from the coffee maker, but even if you sourced all of the components new this wouldn’t cost too much to put together.