Howdy All,
I’ve got a few projects going on lately, but only one of them is into the physical realm so far, so I thought I’d show you a bit of it.
A couple years ago I got hold of an old broken laser printer. I disassembled the thing, and took out the interesting bits. A few motors, some pulleys/belts, and a little air pump. Anyway, one of the motors was a small stepper, and has been of particular interest to me, just in terms of positioning capability.
Finally, a few weeks ago I decided what I actually wanted to do with said motor. I figured I’d use it to make a clock/analog meter of some sort. Then my imagination began to run away with me and I started thinking about how pretty I could make it.
Anyway, I ended up grabbing a large piece of scrap board I had laying around, sanded and stained it up real nice, mounted the stepper on the back, and gave it numbers and a pointing needle. With all the hardware in brass.
Here’s the back side of the board after I stained it. Just to give you some idea of what the front side looked like before staining.
Here’s the board after staining. Pretty isn’t it? Also, the knots look like a bird’s face.
Here’s the front with the brass needle and numbers added. The numbers were done with small brass tacks that I hammered in. The needle is just a bit of round brass hobby stock. The stepper is mounted with two brass screw head bolts, and the peg to stop the needle is just a brass machine screw.
Here’s the back of the board with the electronics installed.
And here’s a bit more of a closeup.
Upper left is what used to be a Lithium battery charger from SparkFun. It broke a while ago, and while I was looking for a DC barrel jack for power, this board was laying there and had one on it. So, instead of removing the jack and placing it on the main board, I left it where it was and added a switch and some wire.
Middle board is just an ATmega328p on a proto-board I had laying around. It’s got a little real-time clock chip, and a temperature sensor also on the board.
Bottom right is the stepper motor driver board (also from SparkFun) and the stepper motor itself. (I still need to mount this board down. For now it’s just hanging there.)
Anyway. I don’t have it programmed yet. So it’s not telling the time, or the temperature. But it IS a clock in potentia, and I think it looks really damn good. Anyway. I’m pleased.
P.S. You also might notice that the clock goes from 0 to 10, which makes telling time difficult. I plan to add a small LED on the end of the needle that will mean +10, so noon will be +10 and pointing at 2. You’ll have to figure out AM and PM for yourself.