Clock One Winder & Main Differential (02012)

Over the last year some of the first candidate final assemblies for the 10,000 Year Clock have been completed. We are now working on several major components, but the first one to be assembled and tested is this power storage system. When visiting the Clock, these will be some of the first working components that you see. There are two energy sources for the Clock which both store energy into this system, one uses the temperature difference from day to night, and the other is wound by the visitors.
This assembly of gears winds up the three sided rack gear in the center that resembles a vertebrae. While only about 20 ft of it are employed here in the shop, it will eventually be over 75ft tall, and have a large weight at the end replacing the platform loaded with lead shown here.
This system will be suspended 400ft down in the 500ft deep shaft that was carved using a raise bore drill last year. The large structural elements and gears are made from marine grade 316 stainless steel, most smaller pins and rollers are titanium, and the bearings are all made from an industrial ceramic. The entire system uses no lubrication, but the first tests have shown that over 93% of the energy put into the system, comes back out to go to the Clock.
In the video most of the components are final, but you will see some temporary elements. These include the winding capstan itself which we are still working on, as well as the roller chain and shafts used to connect the winder and main power differential.
Concept & Design by Danny Hillis
Project Management by Alexander Rose
Design & Engineering by Jascha Little
Primary Machining by The Machine Works
Assembly & Test Engineering at Rand Machine Works with
Brian Ford
Jake Faw
Jordan Hu
Jascha Little
Chris Rand
Greg Staples
Paolo Salvagione
Zoe Stephenson