Reply To: What Did You Do Today 2019

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I've posted a couple of photos of my clock project, and today finally after nearly 360 days since acquiring some of the bones of a Synchronome I installed the clock in its new case on our kitchen wall.

Not a wonderful photo I'm afraid. The clock keeps the gravity arm and the basic chassis, but the arm is reset by a cam driven by a stepper motor. Pendulum is sensed by an opto interrupter (you can just see a little white blob which is the mounting for it below the pendulum). Swings are counted by an Arduino Nano which drives the stepper. Most of the dial is used but driven by another stepper rather than the original electromagnet. I had to make a new pendulum using a carbon fibre rod and cast iron bob since the original was missing – also a new pallet.

Pendulum is impulsed every 40 swings = 80 seconds rather than the original 30 since it doesn't have to drive a count wheel, and the dial impulsed once every 9 seconds. Main reason to use stepper motors was to make the clock much quieter than the standard 'Nome.

The case is made from Valchromat, a sort of engineered MDF using Melamine resin – woodword is not my forte but it's turned out OK. Though I have the original case it's not in great condition and anyway I wanted more space to reduce pendulum air loss.

Before installing in the case the clock was keeping pretty good time over quite a long period, but I anticipate quite a lot of regulation as its new home is warmer and the pendulum amplitude will be a bit less. Now I can think about the next project!