This fantastic clock at first sight seems to be non-working, but it works even though the hands are hanging in the air and there is no mechanism behind them. Although the clock seems hollow, the hands are moving and show the correct time!
These watches with an invisible mechanism made by your own hands will surprise your friends who come to visit you, be sure to show the clock to them to see their eyes wide with surprise.
Materials and parts:
- Stepper Motor with Driver Board ULN2003 – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DeLGQuD;
- NodeMCU V3 WIFI Development Board ESP8266 – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DBMbagh;
- DC Boost Step Up Converter – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DnttChx.
How to make a hollow clock with an invisible mechanism:
To begin, we will print a few details on a 3D printer, such as the base, the gears, and the frame for the clock face. You can download all the objects for this watch in STL format from here.
We could use the Arduino Nano for this project, but the clock on this platform would not be accurate, so we used a Node MCU development board with a Wi-Fi module. In this way, we got an accurate internet clock. However, the base for printing is not compatible with the Node MCU and we developed our own.
In this diagram, you can see that the stepper motor driver must be powered with a voltage higher than 5 volts but the NodeMCU does not support a 5-volt output. Instead of using an additional power supply, I am going to use a boost converter.
Solder the wires to the modules according to the diagram above. Then connect our NodeMcu to the computer via USB. Open the Arduino IDE and use it to load the sketch into the controller, you can download the sketch from here (or here – https://github.com/xSnowHeadx/HollowClock).
Now let’s put all the parts of this HollowClock together.
However, we still have one last problem, on the side of the clock, a part of the mechanism is still visible, to hide the biggest gear I will print a cover to hide the mechanism and make the clock even more impressive.
While the printing is in progress, let’s paint our clocks a little bit. I’m going to paint the hands of the clock to make them seem more prominent.
Our watch can be powered by 5 volts from the micro USB port and I plugged it into my power bank.
Now let’s adjust the time of our clock and that’s it, the clock starts working and shows the correct time. I hope you liked this DIY HollowClock, it will enjoy you every day and surprise people who have no idea how this clock works without a visible mechanism.
Watch a video of the process of making a clock without a visible mechanism:
