Welcome to the forum

This forum was created to allow clock builders to ask questions or search for answers from previous builders. Most posts will likely be focused on clocks designed by Steve Peterson, but any clock making questions are welcome. The intent is to share knowledge.

Some of the sub-forums are publicly visible and require a simple registration to post. Hopefully, this will be enough to keep out the spam.

Rules:

1) Be nice.

2) No sharing of plans without permission.

3) Try to stay focused on clock related topics.

4) New threads for separate topics are preferable.

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3 Comments

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mnelson3

Nov 18, 2021

Hey Steve, I must confess I was a bit surprised that you did not take more advantage of the stepper motor to simplify your latest arduino driven clock...curious why it still needs so many gears when you aren't concerned with extended run times? Or am I missing something?

Steve

Nov 18, 2021

Replying to

I don't always worry about the number of gears in a clock when they are 3D printed. It would be a lot different if the gears were hand cut using a scroll saw. 3D printers have such a small incremental cost to add extra gears.

I wanted the clock to have a sweep second hand with the same center position as the hour and minute hands. There are two good options to do this. The stepper motor could be placed behind the clock to drive the second hand directly. Or the motor can be placed below the main portion of the clock and an additional gear set drives the second hand. This adds an extra set of gears, but allows the depth to be reduced significantly with only a minor increase in height.

Two additional sets of gears are needed for the clock. A 60:1 gear ratio is needed between the second hand and the minute hand. And a 12:1 ratio is needed between the minute hand and the hour hand. The 60:1 ratio could have been done with either 2 or 4 sets of gears. 3 sets of gears are not allowed because the second hand would rotate backwards. If the clock was designed using 2 sets of gears, the pinions would be very small or else the large gears would need a lot of teeth. I decided to use 4 gear sets and some of the gears have really large pinions. This choice was made to balance the gear sizes on the left and right sides. It could have been designed with smaller gears, but then the clock would look lopsided. Visual balance determined the larger gear sizes. The 12:1 ratio for the hour hand is a simple 2 gear set out and back from the center column.

A balanced visual look was the primary reason for the extra gears. It could have been made a lot more efficient, but then it would not look as nice.

Steve

alkramer6

Oct 25, 2021

Hey Steve, nice looking site. I plan on posting pictures of my builds here as soon as I find some time, I have 3 printers that are pushing out clock parts as I type this :)