Project idea - Cueball Clock

Agent420

I like clocks.· A lot.· And the stranger the better ;-)

So last night I was disassembling an old ball mouse for their optical rotary encoders (very handy things), when I got the idea of building a clock display that would indicate time by rotating a sphere like a cueball.· The operation would be similar to a trackball, but powered for output rather than moved for input.· I would print numeric digits or symbols on the cueballs and use the xy roller arrangement to position the ball to display the appropriate digit.

Whaddya think?

Chris Savage

Why not just go all out and build a clock based on billiard balls? For each digit the clock moves the appropriate ball into place. Color detection could aid in selecting the right ball or having them in specific positions within the clock. Perhaps on some lazy-susan (vertical?) and rotated into place? It might take some working out…but yeah.

As a side-note I too am into strange design clocks.· I even made one from a VFD that supported large characters (Noritake).· The display shows all sorts of information, but when the time is shown is uses large digits.· Most of my clocks auto-dim at night so as not to keep someone awake.· many have hourly chime and/or alarm functions (usually crescendo alarm).· But I haven't gotten really crazy with the design untils recently.· I should finish some and get them posted.· Maybe we'll start a crazy clock thread in the Complete Projects Forum.·

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Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering

Agent420

^ That's a good idea as well, I have considered something similar but haven't had the time resources to pursue it.· I was going to use a robotic arm much like Steve Norris' ChessBot to move numbered blocks to display the time.· My current rotating idea is based upon space considerations where I intend to display the finished project; I'll only need the space of 4 billiard balls on a small platform.



Post Edited (Agent420) : 8/14/2009 6:32:31 PM GMT

Duffer

If you guys like strange and wonderful clocks and haven't seen this one, it should be a treat. It sure gives new meaning to the term "Analog to Digital Conversion".

Duffer