The ultimate geek clock

MrChips

Joined Oct 2, 2009
30,720
Solar powered clock that always tells tells the correct time, never needs calibration.
That reminds me, I started building an electronic version to this. I have to get back on it.

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Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
There are two vanity projects that I have on hold right now due to an overwhelming amount of work at this moment. This one's gonna have to wait a year or so before I get back to it. But I'm definitely going to follow through, though. Thanks for the link!
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
This is one I always wanted... The Noonday Gun

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I'm guessing at (or around) noon, the magnifying glass focuses on a powder charge and ignites it?

(sending a well placed tiny cannonball shot into the eyesocket of a bound captive, assuming he still hasn't talked given all the first half of the day to ponder his options)
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,032
It’s a British Military thing. They always fired a noonday blank cannon to mark the time. Not sure if they still do. Note the Latitude inscription on the baseplate is for Scotland.
 

Ian0

Joined Aug 7, 2020
9,680

djsfantasi

Joined Apr 11, 2010
9,156
It’s a British Military thing. They always fired a noonday blank cannon to mark the time. Not sure if they still do. Note the Latitude inscription on the baseplate is for Scotland.
The practice is featured in the Mary Poppins stories…
 

djsfantasi

Joined Apr 11, 2010
9,156
The Disney Movie, Mary Poppins was set in 1910 and released in 1964 - 54-year gap. The movie was released 58-years ago.
But the movie was based on P.L. Travers’ books about a character named Mary Poppins. The books were published in 1934.

I’m not sure what you are talking about when you identify “gaps”. Why did you bring up your misleading information?
 

Boggart

Joined Jan 31, 2022
82
Ok, here's a thought.

What if I were to buy one (or several) of those board of pins toys, and converted several groups of its pins into something like seven segment digit displays that would be actuated through the use of solenoids installed in its back. I forgot to mention that I have a small solenoid winding machine that could do the trick. That way only about 22 or so solenoids would be necessary, instead of trying to control each individual pin.

Something like this (please excuse the crude render, I'm brainstorming here)



Also, The rest of the background pins could be turned into a simple group too so that one could choose to either show the digits on top of the background or vice-versa.

With proper lighting, this device could look real cool. Its only drawback would be that it wouldn't be completely silent. But that's ok, I want it for my workshop, not my bedroom.
I had one of these quite a few years ago, it was pretty cool to watch but the electronics eventually failed and I was too slack to try and fix it (was going through a nixie clock phase at the time, ended up releasing three different nixie clock kits, but the tubes are too expensive nowadays, so haven't done a clock kit in a while).

 

BillB3857

Joined Feb 28, 2009
2,570
Did a search of old sitcom's but couldn't find this one. A home owner bought a new clock. It was a series of dots. I'm just guessing but I think the first column of dots represented the hour and the next two columns represented the minutes. A friend of the owner came in and asked what that was. "It's a clock!" said the owner. The friend said something like "How the hell are you supposed to tell time like that???" A few minutes later another friend came over. Ignoring the clock they went about their conversation. When the second friend was leaving she looked at this odd clock and said "My gaud! Look at the time! I gotta go."

I wish I could find it but I suppose nobody on YouTube remembers that far back. Had to be back in the 70's.
That sounds like a BCD clock where each digital position was represented by a binary number.. In my past life we needed to be able to read BCD from a punched tape to see what the machine was supposed to do.
 

MrSalts

Joined Apr 2, 2020
2,767
Nixie tubes are non-existent in the past six weeks and the foreseeable future - they are only made in Russia as far as I know.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,032
All the Russian goods and surplus items will be off the market for a while unless they were already exported... I imported a few Podstakanniks (Russian tea glass holders) that were available on Etsy a while back but they were from ex USSR countries and not directly from Russia. I guess all the Russian items like old nixie tubes and currently manufactured tubes will be going up in price due to lack of availability
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
I once saw a video in YouTube of a guy (American, or German, not sure) who's manufacturing Nixies, and even showing the complete process.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,032
AliX has a new one. Clock made with Oscilloscope CRT. Digital or analog display. Not a kit. It's the finished product. Several display and alarm modes. Still a toss-up for me between the Nixie tube clock and this one. Of course the ultimate clock is the Atmos Clock that is powered by the minute changes in atmospheric pressure, but they are a mite pricey! atmos clocks for sale - Search (bing.com)
7SJ32J Oscilloscope Tube Clock Handmade Electronic DIY Production Creative Clock not 8SJ31J tube - AliExpress
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