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I was introduced to the idea of a none sequential clock by Bob at Hacman. The idea is two large gear rings with hours and minutes engraved on them driven by stepper motors. The numbers though, are out of sequence, and so each new minute and hour involves movement of the rings in a different direction and distance.

I’ve always had a fascination with clocks, and I really liked the idea of this one. The rings are suspended from smaller gears which are directly attached to the steppers. It’s a bit big though, probably 1.2m in diameter. I thought I’d try making one a bit smaller.

My original plan was to laser cut the gears, using plywood for the rings and acrylic for the driving gears. To make it a bit more visually exciting, I introduced some idler gears on both rings. The idea being that a single gear at the top would drive the ring, and the ring would drive the idlers (this turned out to be an idea doomed to fail…).”

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