Marble Clock
fromThis Marble Clock was made as a wedding present for my very good friends; the Grubersmiths.
I've had this design mulling away for years now since first seeing the black plastic "Time Machine" in a shop window and being fascinated by it. I've since seen a number of variations of this design in wood and but none of them ever struck me as particularly elegant. I really enjoyed designing and building
You read the time from the number of marbles stored in the rockers, working from bottom to top. Once per minute the large cog picks up a marble from the bottom of the machine and drops it in the top.
The clock is powered by a synchronous motor which runs off a 12V mains adapter. The 50Hz mains frequency is what keeps the clock in time. I was surprised that (al least in the UK) the 50Hz signal on the mains supply is actually more accurate at keeping time than a quartz crystal.
This design is partly inspired by some of the beautiful clocks made by Clayton Boyer (http://www.claytonboyer.blogspot.co.uk/) and thanks to Matthias Wandel (woodgears.ca) for use of the wood gear template!
I've had this design mulling away for years now since first seeing the black plastic "Time Machine" in a shop window and being fascinated by it. I've since seen a number of variations of this design in wood and but none of them ever struck me as particularly elegant. I really enjoyed designing and building
You read the time from the number of marbles stored in the rockers, working from bottom to top. Once per minute the large cog picks up a marble from the bottom of the machine and drops it in the top.
The clock is powered by a synchronous motor which runs off a 12V mains adapter. The 50Hz mains frequency is what keeps the clock in time. I was surprised that (al least in the UK) the 50Hz signal on the mains supply is actually more accurate at keeping time than a quartz crystal.
This design is partly inspired by some of the beautiful clocks made by Clayton Boyer (http://www.claytonboyer.blogspot.co.uk/) and thanks to Matthias Wandel (woodgears.ca) for use of the wood gear template!