Making A Mechanical Watch From Scratch Is Fine Work

There are plenty of hard jobs out there, like founding your country’s nuclear program, or changing the timing chain on a BMW diesel. Making your own mechanical watch from scratch falls under …

Fibonacci Clock Looks Like Beautiful Modern Art

Don’t ask us why, but hackers and makers just love building clocks. Especially in the latter case, many  like to specialize in builds that don’t even look like traditional timepieces, a…

A Cyberpunk Pocketwatch

For a time, pocketwatches were all the rage, but they were eventually supplanted by the wristwatch. [abe] built this cyberpunk Lock’n’Watch to explore an alternate history for the once …

Split-Flap Clock Flutters Its Way To Displaying Time Without Numbers

Here’s a design for a split-flap clock that doesn’t do it the usual way. Instead of the flaps showing numbers , Klapklok has a bit more in common with flip-dot displays. It’s an a…

Oscillator Needs Fine-Tuning

Since their invention more than a century ago, crystal oscillators have been foundational to electronic design. They allow for precise timekeeping for the clocks in computers as well as on our wris…

Geochron: Another Time, Another Timeless Tale

The Geochron World Time Indicator is a clock that doubles as a live map of where the sun is shining on the Earth. Back in its day, it was a cult piece that some have dubbed the “Rolex on the wall.”…

The 1983 Clock Four Decades In The Making

In 1983, a 14-year-old [Will] saw an LED clock in The Sharper Image store. At $250, it stayed in the store. That was a lot of money back then, especially for most teenagers. But [Will] didn’t…

A Flip Digit Clock, Binary Style

Flip digit clocks are a prized piece of consumer electrical ephemera, providing as they do a digital display without significant electronics. Making your own flip digit display involves some drudge…

Seven Day Movement Makes A Rubbish Clock

We see a lot of clocks here at Hackaday. Some of them are better than others, but this one from [John Graham-Cumming] is definitely a rubbish clock. It performs the simple yet vital task of keeping…

Recreating A Popular Faux-Nixie Clock

There’s a good chance you’ve seen “Nixie clocks” on the Internet that replace the classic cold cathode tubes with similarly sized LCD panels. The hook is that the LCDs can s…

Globe-Shaped World Clock Is A 3D-Printed Mechanical Marvel

Time zones are a complicated but necessary evil. Humans like the numbers on the clock to vaguely match up with what the sun is doing in the sky outside. To that end, different places in the world k…

Climate Change May Make Days Longer

For those who say there’s never enough time in a day, your wish for more time is getting granted, if ever so slightly. Scientists have now found a new source of our days getting longer &#8212…

A Lenticular Clock Spells Out The Hours

So many are the clock projects which cross the Hackaday threshold, that it’s very rare indeed to see something that hasn’t already been done. We think we’ve not seen a lenticular …

Iron Man Arc Reactor Clock Is A Stylish Piece

Iron Man was the film that kicked off the Marvel craze, and is widely regarded to be better than a lot of the movies that followed. If you’re a big fan of the OG, you’re probably alread…

Newly Completed Overly-Complex Clock Synchronizes Multiple Mechanisms

Some time ago [Kelton] was working on a clock inspired by Rube Goldberg contraptions. It uses only a single motor, and he’s proud to now show off the finished product (video, embedded below.)…

Plight Of The Lowly Numitron Tube

In the 60’s and 70’s there were many ways to display numeric data. Nixie tubes, Vacuum Florescent Displays (VFD), micro projection systems, you name it. All of them had advantages and d…

Intentionally Overly-Complex Clock Is Off To A Good Start

[Kelton] from Build Some Stuff decided to create a clock that not only had kinetic elements, but a healthy dose of Rube Goldberg inspiration. The result is a work in progress, but one that looks aw…

Using The Moiré Effect For Unique Clock Face

If you’ve ever seen artifacts on a digital picture of a computer monitor, or noticed an unsettling shifting pattern on a TV displaying someone’s clothes which have stripes, you’ve…

A Look Inside The Geochron Clock

There are plenty of cool clocks out there, and maps by their very essence are cool, too. But a map that’s also a clock — or is it a clock that’s also a map? — has to be the …

Tell Time And Predict The Heavens With This Astronomical Timepiece

Looking for a new project, or just want to admire some serious mechanical intricacy? Check out [illusionmanager]’s Astronomical Clock which not only tells time, but shows the the positions of…