Lego clock with 7 complications

[Davidz90]

A dual-pendulum clock with grasshopper escapement, inspired by John Harrison's H1 clock that was intended to be used aboard a ship, for accurate navigation. Two pendulums swinging in opposite direction cancel out  forces due to the ship moving on waves.

My model includes several extra complications:

-separate seconds hand

-moon phase indicator accurate to 1 day in 19 years

-calendar, with year length of 365.2484 days (accurate to 1 day in 170 years)

-star map (planisphere) showing the night sky at the given date and time

-equation of time (the difference between mean time and solar time, which is +-15 minutes depending on the time of year; accurate to 2 minutes)

-time of sunrise/sunset, accurate to approx. 15 minutes

-motor powered self-winder

Video:

 

[ord]

 incredible. I think I'll have to watch this one a few times...

[GerritvdG]

Really impressive , and an excellent way to honour the awesome work of John Harrison!

[Davidz90]

12 minutes ago, GerritvdG said:

Really impressive , and an excellent way to honour the awesome work of John Harrison!

Thanks! John Harrison was a genius, no doubt about it. Grasshopper escapement is an uncommon mechanism, but actually one of the simpler ones to pull off in Lego. Also, it can be extremely accurate; this clock is not made for accuracy and keeps time up to 5 minutes/day, but under 10 seconds/day is possible with a regular, long pendulum, temperature expansion compensation and fine-tuned escapement. 

16 minutes ago, ord said:

 incredible. I think I'll have to watch this one a few times...

Thanks! 

[Axadder]

Mesmerizing!

[karmadrome]

That is incredible. As an admirer of horology, I absolutely approve of this.

[Jurss]

Impressive, incredible ... I don't know other english words.

[1963maniac]

That is some incredibly complicated engineering, WOW!!!!!!!!! Dare I ask if there are going to be building instructions?

[Davidz90]

4 hours ago, karmadrome said:

That is incredible. As an admirer of horology, I absolutely approve of this.

 

2 hours ago, Jurss said:

Impressive, incredible ... I don't know other english words.

Thank you very much!

52 minutes ago, 1963maniac said:

That is some incredibly complicated engineering, WOW!!!!!!!!! Dare I ask if there are going to be building instructions?

I'm afraid not, for several reasons: 

1. That would take a lot of time 

2. Clock needs several custom pieces (steel nuts for pendulum weights, steel block for driving weight, printed dials)

3. Mechanism is a horrid mess of almost 100 gears, with axles going in various directions and questionable building techniques to get some gears to mesh together.

However, I have a series of videos where various components are shown in detail:

 

[m00se]

Generating sine waves using gears; never thought about that. Really brilliant work, hope to see more of this in the future.

[lcvisser]

Mind blown. Amazing. 

Thanks for sharing! (Almost missed it…)

This for me is what Lego Technic is about: mechanisms! There’s so much one can learn from building such things. 

[howitzer]

For once, the music is appropriately epic to match the epicness of the build. Amazing work.

[Davidz90]

Thank you very much!

I agree, that is what Lego Technic is for, at least for me. I'm not a fan of cars or vehicles in general, but always liked clocks and other contraptions with complex gear ratios. 

2 minutes ago, howitzer said:

For once, the music is appropriately epic to match the epicness of the build. Amazing work.

Thanks! I was afraid I might have gone too far with the music XD

[MajklSpajkl]

Wow, this is pure marvel! My brain is having hard time to comprehend the science behind this 

[Davidz90]

8 minutes ago, MajklSpajkl said:

Wow, this is pure marvel! My brain is having hard time to comprehend the science behind this 

Thanks! Frankly, working out the correct gear ratios made my brain hurt too. In the end, I wrote a computer program to find them. Then, I "only" had to scan through a list of about 300 combinations to find the most convenient ones. 

[designer-han]

Fantastic MOC! Just watch it a couple of time.... and althought it is difficult to catch the mathematics behind it....

just watching  the clock in motion is a pleasure.

Very Very nice MOC, Technic to the next LEVEL with capitals. Well done! Including the music.

And BI's, indeed this would run into so much questions about gearings, adjustments, stalling, and so on....

[allanp]

WOW!!! This is insane in the best way, very impressive!

[Davidz90]

1 hour ago, designer-han said:

Fantastic MOC! Just watch it a couple of time.... and althought it is difficult to catch the mathematics behind it....

just watching  the clock in motion is a pleasure.

Very Very nice MOC, Technic to the next LEVEL with capitals. Well done! Including the music.

And BI's, indeed this would run into so much questions about gearings, adjustments, stalling, and so on....

Thank you very much!

Indeed, getting proper gear ratios and arranging them in compact enough form was one thing, but then making sure that everything is properly aligned and runs with little friction was another. Very quickly I realized that auto-rewinder is a must here; grandfather clocks and wall-hanging ones have the advantage of large space below, where the hanging weight can drop. With this form, getting more than one hour working time was all but impossible (and having two pendulums to keep in motion instead of one doesn't help the efficiency).

52 minutes ago, allanp said:

WOW!!! This is insane in the best way, very impressive!

Thanks!

[Johnny1360]

I do like to see stuff like this and you have done a great job. I always like when a moc not only looks good and functions fairly well but also teaches you something as well. It does look like more than 7 complications, to me anyway, lol. Thanks