Here is my latest creation, it’s a Gear Clock. It consists of a bunch of wooden gears, a PIC microcontroller and a stepper motor. The heart of the clock is a PIC 16f628A microcontroller. This microcontroller has an internal oscillator however an external 20MHz crystal oscillator is being used since it will have to accurately keep track of time for weeks and months. The microcontroller is interfaced to two buttons and one motor.
The gear arrangement is as follows:
- 9 tooth motor gear
- 72 tooth minute gear with a 24 tooth secondary
- 72 tooth intermediate gear with a 18 tooth secondary
- 72 tooth hour gear
To achieve the correct timing the 9 tooth motor gear is advanced 4 steps every 9 seconds. By moving 4 steps at a time the motor routines can be simple since the motor is always at rest with the same coil energized.
Read more about the gear clock here.
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Wow this is very cool!
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Very nice 🙂
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nice one Alan
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http://www.elektronika.ba/707/gear-clock-based-on-pic16f628a/
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Alan, very nice job you did here, I love it, I wish I could build one for myself now. At first I thought you did it in metal, but as the video progressed I seen it was wood, very clever indeed. Did you consider maybe a metallic spraypaint or the such? I think a textured face would look cool too.
I didn’t even realize it was you till the end of the video, good job man!
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very attractive use of woods really very good post
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Great job Alan! I cut mostly MDF on my CNC and always had trouble painting it until I learned to dilute some tightbond wood glue with water until its milk like and coat all surfaces of the MDF. Smaller parts I actually dip in the mixture. When dry you can paint it without it soaking up all the paint.
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Hi Craig,
That is some helpful info. The did also paint an old plastic CD case to see if the look would be any different than on the MDF and it was the same on the main flat surface. So I don’t think I have any issues there, but the edges are a different story. The edges seem to make the paint react in a strange way. In this case the paint looks even more silvery in the edges.
Do you think the glue brand matters? I have a large bottle of another brand here.
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I don’t think brand will matter as long as its water based. There use to be a product on the market made by tight bond called wood sizing. Wood workers used to to coat end grain to keep if from wicking up paint. When I called tightbond about it they told me how to make it myself. Just a little glue goes a long way. Like I said before I cut a lot of mdf so I keep a 1 gallon jug premixed. As you stated the machined areas are where is mainly needed.