Debug Hints

A few builders reported that their clock would randomly stop where balls enter the upper ball drop. I could see the risk, but my prototype clock was running flawlessly. My second clock showed the problem. It would stop every day or two, always just after dropping a ball into the upper ball drop. Both clocks should have been identical. One ran great and the other randomly stopped. So, I designed a throttling mechanism to hold back balls in the upper ball ramp. Both clocks run perfectly now.

Here is the fix that will be released as soon as I update the assembly guide.

A paddle wheel is added to the upper ball drop. Gears keep the paddle wheel synchronized to release one ball at a time.

The back profile shows three new gears and a new back plate.

Have SP17 running very well, however, I do seem to have slippage in the wire clutch setup. I seen that a few people have had this problem.

Any hints how to make the clutch "stronger".

I also have another question. When a ball bearing enters the first top chamber, the next ball bearing is pressing on it. Sometimes, the clock stops as there is not enough energy to overcome the force of the next inline ball pressing on the one that has just entered the chamber. This is more prevalent if the top rail is full of ball bearings. Has anyone had this problem???

Cheers

Krys S

After fixing the edit 3 wiring on my V4 and replacing all the components, I upload the sketch and get the following in Serial Monitor:

www.stevesclocks.com clock movement - Rev 2.08

Waiting for RTC...

www.stevesclocks.com clock movement - Rev 2.08

Waiting for RTC...

Still no movement on my stepper. I apologize for so many questions, but I'm this is really getting frustrating. Thanks, All!

I'm new here (and to building Steve's wonderful clocks), so I apologize if some of my questions are trivial. I'm at the very early stages of my new hobby, and have encountered some expected pitfalls. The most pertinent one is cutting and using this 1.5mm piano wire. I'm using the dremel cutting wheel, and even when cutting at a cross-diagonal from the the stranding and with the cutting rotation aligned with the strand direction, I'm still plagued with sloppy ends. This, of course, makes alignment and insertion into the top frame holes all but impossible. Is there a trick to prevent the ends from unwinding and expanding into an unmanageable diameter? Or, am I better off just switching to copper or SS stock? Thanks, All!