Digital Clock Or Automaton?

[@Matt95GT]

Fran, if you can get a couple dimensions of that gear/shaft diameter with calipers, I will resin print and send you a replacement. Or a few - I typically print multiples +/- a few tenths of a millimeter for tolerance. I have been reproducing unobtainium gears for automatic turntables (and other vintage HiFi) for a couple years now, including gears that need to withstand being press-fit onto a metal shaft. I'm serious, no strings attached - I'd love to see you get this clock running again!

[@omniverideus]

You're onto it! Need to experiment with some internal PLA slip clutch designs like the one shown in the video too. KUDOS

[@mrnmrn1]

I always bore the holes up in press-fit plasic gears and glue them on the shaft with gel type superglue. Press-fitting them will cause them to crack sooner or later as the plastic shrinks. I do this even with original gears when I see one known as prone to this failure but not cracked yet, or started cracking but not between the teeth.

[@vwestlife]

I had this same model of Lumitime clock in fully working condition and did a video about it in 2010. Unfortunately I didn't realize how failure-prone it was and how sought-after working ones would become, so I donated it back to the thrift store a while later.

[@CalculatorObsessed]

Thanks for this comment; I wondered where I had seen this clock previously. It’s great when you see videos from two of your favourite KZbinrs do an unintentional collaboration. We can all see a tear down of a broken clock plus the clock fully working. Thank you!

[@Ni5ei]

Kevin, I didn't know you did a video on this clock and can't find it in your list. Is it still up?

[@CARLiCON]

@@Ni5ei yes look under "Mechanical "LED" alarm clock + "Old Time Radio" microphone"

[@Ni5ei]

@@CARLiCON Ah yeah, thanks. I'd been misreading his comment and thought it was 10 years ago so I didn't look any further 😵‍💫

[@TheDanEfranChannel]

Fifty ways to love your louver. What a delightfully clever and unexpected use of automaton techniques!

[@gregreynolds5686]

A fascinating reminder of how ingenious humanity needed to be before the age of microprocessors.

[@AnEntropyFan]

You don't need a microprocessor for a segment display clock. The problem was that the new electronic displays and the active components needed to drive them were far more expensive, plus the "best" electronic clock display didn't quite come to be (early LEDs were notoriously dim and fragile, which is how come VFD helf up for so long - imagine when neon tubes are the brighter and more robust option) yet. Now it's the other way around, recently an American venture capital hype company with manufacturing in China of course released a very bland copy of a 1970s mechanical digital wtacth (see Amida Digitrend) and made everything run on stepper motors because of course they did. The original Amida was a cheap watch made to "compete" with the very expensive novel electronic digitals, and the Fakemida is a cheap Chinese watch with nothing inspiring to it (they stole the design, and filled it with the cheapest modern solution for the actuation) sold at an influencer premium.

[@mmaldonadojr]

How old is this desk clock? I remember building a digital clock kit, circa 1980, that was fully electronic! It comprised a single module that had all the logic and LED displays, plus a transformer, a speaker, a power cord, a case and a few pushbuttons. It was much simpler than the clock Fran has just reviewed!

[@AnEntropyFan]

@@mmaldonadojr It was probably made in the early 70's. By the 1980's the electronic equivalents became dirt cheap, even the formerly really high end minituarised stuff like LED and LCD watch modules.

[@1spiralout]

@@AnEntropyFan That's an awful lot of words for a reply that has nothing to do with what the guy said.

[@AnEntropyFan]

@@1spiralout It has everything to do with with it, not my fault that you aren't functionally literate in order to comprehend that trivial and obvious fact. The OP managed to be doubly-wrong in a sentence that just barely qualifies as a full sentence. Their first assertion was that an electronic digital clock needs a microprocessor to work and then their second layer of wrongness is them clearly implying that these electromechanical facsimile of electronic clocks were made because no microprocessors. Despite my best attempt to give a short synopsis on why these devices came to be and keep it PG-13 in terms of ease to grasp, I certainly didn't count that an adult with the cognitive faculties of a 4 year old would be upset by it. You and I are clearly different kinds of people. You are obviously a vapid shell, as can be seen from your reply to me - you made an assertion and a qualification, but provided nothing useful to anyone. Meanwhile, I pointed out that OP is wrong, and explained why. Go back to 4chan.

[@fredknox2781]

I'd check McMaster-Carr. They list plastic gears for shafts as small as 2mm.

[@Studio23Media]

I'd just 3D print one.

[@mrnmrn1]

​@@Studio23Media Injection molded is a lot more reliable in the long term, especially compared to PLA. Some resin printers and nylon powder based 3D laser printers give OKish results but those are very expensive.

[@paulmurgatroyd6372]

No jewels but the whole thing is a little gem. 😃

[@Team-fabulous]

😅😂😂

[@38911bytefree]

Mains freq in many contries is contantly compansated, specially at midnight to add or subtract the equivalente cycles to even the day count .... You need a good quarz reference to get into 1s a day and below. Mains freq .... not that bad.

[@hugeshows]

I have repaired this problem in the past by sourcing that gear from other more common clock models. A lot of them had the same basic motor and gear driving them. As a last resort, you can take the old gear and make an impression mold by carefully rotating the gear and making two impressions in order to replicate the missing teeth. Then just pour resin in the mold. It doesn't have to be fancy, modeling clay will work. Then you just have to carefully drill out the hole by hand.

[@Nf6xNet]

What a fascinating mechanism! I love how this Lumitime with mechanical segments, the later Lumitime electrical segment design, and true electronic LED clocks all implement the same finite state machine with different technologies.

[@The-KP]

That the designer(s) thought this design would be the better option given the components and materials available in the day... says a lot about the era in which this was made.

[@maxdoes_]

I'm obsessed with these non-electronic "digital" displays. I have a used working Solari flap unit taken from a train station if you ever want to examine it!

[@realcygnus]

Nifty ! Rather clever engineering IMO.

[@CalculatorObsessed]

I love it when you cover clocks and display technologies. Very much hope you can revisit it as a repair at some point, especially as a few fans have offered solutions that may help.

[@idahobob]

You might have a shot with a small stepper, like the 28BYJ-48 to replace the dead sychro motor. A stepper would also be able to be placed a stage or more ahead of the broken motor drive gear. It's a thought, and they are Dirt Cheep. Next would be to sync the stepper to WWV or the like. (Off a Xtal should be good enough - Arduino anybody?)

[@hypnotised-clover]

What you call "the star" is typically just called a kaleidoscope in clock/watch collecting realms. I have a few from the 1950s.

[@nixxonnor]

I enjoy this video as I glance at my good old Philips HR 5391 LED Alarm Clock. It stopped working 15 years ago. I took it apart then, but I did not bother to look into fixing it. I was in over my head back then. The pieces stayed in the bag for 14 years, until I stumbeled over it last year. I then looked at the PCB and measured out the suspect components again & figured out that an electrolytic capacitor was bad. I replaced the cap, and now it is all good again :D EDIT: After watching Fran's disassembly of the clock I understand that the Limitime is a completely different, mechanical beast, compared to my Philips

[@alexhajnal107]

It never ceases to amaze me that complex mechanical devices like this were once cheaper to produce than solid-state electronic ones.

[@mikebarushok5361]

Isn't the slip clutch internal to the motor also to allow turning the time setting shaft without having to spin the motor? Many of those types of clock mechanisms only allowed the setting wheel to be turned in one direction. And forcing it the other direction often broke teeth.

[@geo8rge]

It's amazing that was designed without computer aided design and 3D printing.

[@phildem414]

This thing is nuts. I love it 😂 An F1 gearbox has less parts!

[@38911bytefree]

LOL

[@38911bytefree]

Overcomplicated and elegant at the same time. What a crazy contraption

[@cheeseparis1]

This is a wonderful mechanism. I saw the other one with rotating disks with contacts to pilot 7 neon bulbs for each digit. I bet they thought "How can we save on bulbs?" Yeah, let's use just one... and 7 arms guiding some masks. Amazing. Thanks so much Fran for showing it to us.

[@123bugness]

I sure would like to build one of these with a pendulum drive. Would be amazing to get or make the dimensioned drawings...

[@lectrikdog]

maybe use a spring winder for each digit too?

[@Enigma758]

I have had success with using alcohol pads to remove the oozing on the cord. You might want to try that first.

[@pomonabill220]

Interesting how this works! Too bad the motor has failed, but I appreciate you running it manually and showing the operation.

[@sonic2000gr]

Well it says light emitting digital, not diode, so technically they are not lying!

[@noakeswalker]

I can see why you've been searching for one of these Fran - what a fantastic LED avoidance design. Is there a year of manufacture anywhere ? Early 70s I suppose....

[@youtuuba]

This approach, of replicating the function of newfangled electronic things by mechanical means, reminds me of the products by the Tomy company, also of Japan. They produced a lot of products that sure seemed to be electronic but were internally ingenious and elaborate mechanical contrivances. I recall a handheld "pong" type "video game" which DID have a tiny LED (as the 'ball'), but that was moved around by layers of complex plastic gears, cams, eccentric lever arrangements, all forming essentially kind of mechanical analog computer that could respond to the paddle movements of the player, and calculate what the balls trajectory should be as it "bounced" around during the game. The only circuitry was the battery, a small DC motor what provided motive force to the mechanism, the aforementioned single LED and its current limiting resistor. As for THIS clock, if the only thing wrong with it is a dead motor unit, I wonder about adapting a small stepping motor to drive the main shaft. Then, a simple electronic clock circuit and a stepper controller IC could be used to run the motor. Might just about fit into the same case, or perhaps the right side of the case would need to be modified to provide a bit more space. Alternately, one of the tiny microcontroller chips (Parallax, Arduino, etc) could be given a simple program, along with one of the many tiny stepper controller ICs (and a suitable power supply, probably external to the case).

[@davebittner822]

My parents had this clock on their bedside table when I was teenager. I remember staring at it for long periods of time to catch the various parts moving, and also being a bit disappointed that it was mechanical.

[@JimCoder]

I am dumbstruck. This is technological archeology right here. Imagine someone a thousand years from now analyzing this. In the early years of LEDs the holy grails were larger LEDs and LEDs in colors other than infrared and red. This design solved the former problem and *could* have used a blue filter for the latter. I'd bet the designers didn't even imagine that blue LEDs would ever become possible and so missed that opportunity! This video is too humbly undersold. It's brilliant. 😃

[@MartysRandomStuff]

Very cool mechanical shutter system. Looks like when that motor quit it overheated baking that gear. Probably a bit too much work for a synchronous motor to handle. To get that working again you could 3D print an assembly to hold a small stepper motor and a dedicated speed controller for it. Probably not enough room to also add a power supply so the lamps would have to be switched out as well so the whole thing could be run off a DC power supply. But it would be cool to see those shutters moving under power again.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

*_"Light Emitting Digital."_* And all these years I thoght L.E.D. stood for SOMETHING ELSE...🤭

[@CuriousMarc]

It’s a MLED! Mechanical Light Emitting Device.

[@hiredgoon4269]

6:06 Try using a thinner guitar pick as a spudger. I know you have guitar picks in abundance. Seriously, guitar picks work so much better than actual spudgers.

[@jmcarp0]

This disentigraging gear problem is the same thing that happened to the motor in my ball bearing clock from 1979ish, the gear just melted. I replaced that motor twice, the first one came from a clock parts company that had the replacement motor. That one broke for some other reason. The second one couldn't be found from that clock parts company but came from some kind of a timer motor that had the same motor internally but a different gear reduction, which i switched out. The pinion is a different kind of plastic in this model so hopefully wont melt. But I'd go with the resin printer guy above.

[@matthart9251]

I have to wonder how much time the engineers spent developing that clock and what it sold for in retail.

[@sandrodunatov485]

So happy.. I clearly remember my father had a radio clock with this exact clock technology, down to the black and white chequered dial on the left. Worked 24/7 for a couple decades or more, than the clock started to go all over the place due to mangled cogs and could not be fixed as spareparts , unsurprisingly, were unobtanium. Cool.

[@Brian-L]

What a magnificent piece of engineering! Might be time to source a watchmakers lathe and start cutting your own gears and pinions. I wonder if Clickspring would partner with you to revive this beauty?

[@loveminis31]

Back when I used to work on clocks I joined a clock repair group and they were amazing. You could ask fir used or new old stock and you be surprised what people have in their stuff. I hope you can find something like that. And you can cut a new wheel by hand with some help from lathe. Course people don't like slow ways.

[@alinayossimouse]

This cam design is great. As soon as the face plate is on the changing digits are like magic, even though the mechanism is really easy to understand when taken apart

[@dhpbear2]

2:45 - Interesting that the 'thumb-notch' on the box is left-of-center. (?)

[@TheErador]

The 3D printed gears for Macintosh floppy drive eject mechs can't be much bigger than this? If they can be successfully 3d printed I don't really see that a replacement here wouldn't be possible?

[@FranLab]

It would be better to machine one from brass.

[@TheErador]

@@FranLab sure if you've got the kit.

[@hacketiwack]

@@FranLab may be worth asking @mymechanics to make a new one :-P.

[@CARLiCON]

@@FranLab after seeing the same gear fail in other clocks, now I'm wondering if maybe it's a "sacrificial gear" designed to fail (say when someone winds it backwards while it's running) to avoid wreaking havoc with the entire mechanism..in which case a brass/metal/polycarb replacement gear may not be the best long term solution

[@cheeseparis1]

Is it possible to mix brass and plastic gears? I'm afraid the stronger material will eat plastic teeth

[@gazzaka]

That is incredible ! Ingenious ...wow

[@dhpbear2]

This reminds me of a Sweda cash register from the late 60s, the 'LED's were actually bits of orange plastic.

[@muffenme]

I just use a small dc motor with a simple circuit to get the timing right, white led with resistor, and power supply.

[@henrikjensen3278]

I may be way to cynical, but when it said digital I discounted led immediately. Resin printers can handle the resolution, but finding a resin with the right flexibilty for the reverse block may require a few tries.

[@pauldavis6356]

The LED clock realy is digital. The way you described the operation of the cams and the fingers (off / on, off / on) is just like binary code - zeros and ones (off/on). Pretty neat.

[@fritzkinderhoffen2369]

Brilliant explanation of the mechanism. Like how you took care not damage it while exploding. Interesting that an earlier explorer knew their limitations and stopped in time.

[@michael931]

Mr Pete just got a new Unimat Micro lathe. He's making videos about it. Maybe he can make that gear out of phenolic or aluminum or brass.

[@YT-Observer]

i rember having one of those years ago - lost it when we moved jewel count was required by US Customs for all clocks/cronometers/time pieces as it effects duty charges

[@jfazack1]

I have two of these in my basement! I think I got them from an estate sale about 20 years ago

[@lectrikdog]

This clock makes interesting noise when running🥸 kind of a creaky plasticy sound every time digits change

[@sandhollowneko]

I just picked up one of these a couple of days ago at a thrift store. I already had one of the model you showed last time but black

[@BrainHurricanes]

We had a LUMITIME 71852, sadly I don't know where it went. As a kid I was fascinated by the sun sparkles and loved the big numbers.

[@BixbyConsequence]

This world needs more Light Emitting Digitals.

[@anticat900]

What great effort to follow the 'latest' LED fashion using for me, an incredibly complicated mechanical alternative. It also demonstrates certain types of plastic degradation.

[@dougbrowning82]

My dad had a Lloyd's clock radio with a similar clock movement. Only it had an opaque panel in front of the mask, and the light shone through from the back. The shutters were made of thin, leaf metal. The numbers displayed in a light green colour.

[@VK3NFI]

Hi Fran get the dimensions and count the teeth take a photo etc I have printed gears that size just recently for janky TV rotators. and also a speedometer trip meter tiny gear it Work's quite well. Those yellowing opaque type gears are what I call the cheese gears they fall apart with age, The reason they where used is 1 they are classed as the weak point if something gests stuck it will fail before the plastic ones, The other reason is plastic gears i print work fine just they do allow more gear noise in the gear train so they where like a flexible gear and cut down motor noise etc.. That gear could be printed but with mine I have to tweak the seize about 5 times to get it just right. fist one was bit tight and wouldnt run free rest were a BEES willy under and skipped teeth . next 2 were just right

[@McSynth]

Incredible design and engineering just to get in to the digital end of the market.

[@lorensims4846]

Ha! Not Light Emitting Diodes at all. "Light Emitting Digital," meaning only that the numbers light up. Not all that unlike the flip card digital alarm clock from GE that I had in high school, but the numbers on mine were white, where these are red and try to mimic the look of eight-segment LEDs. I think I liked mine better. It was more honest in its presentation.

[@sometimesleela5947]

Had a flipper too. Loved the alarm, which was the speaker hooked to line voltage through a resistor. Always fun to start the day sounding like you're being electrocuted.

[@matbillings2533]

Huh...so that's what "led" stands for! Mystery solved! :D

[@terryrestoule2684]

If you remember in very early science fiction (written before transistors and modern electronics), the computers were analog and if the programming had to be changed, they would machine a new cam for the computer. This clock reminds me of that.

[@BCowcorn]

Having the cams work both ways makes it easier to adjust the time. Imagine having to flip it through 12 or 24 hours of readings, then accidentally going past the time you were going for!

[@Team-fabulous]

Such a shame the motor is goosed.. I think the cellulose disc is a type of sprag clutch.. Can you imagine having to start and design the cam mechanism from scratch... I can feel a stroke coming on just thinking about it😮😅

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Starting at about 05:57 in this video: The old reliable _alternate prybar._ 😊

[@Studio23Media]

3D printing could absolutely fix (and replicate) this ingenious mechanism!

[@MXstar189]

used to go with my mom to AMVETS and always ran to the electronics wall (still do that when I go there). I remember taking one of these apart.

[@ntsecrets]

I had one of those marble clocks I got as a kid where a scoop would drop a marble once a minute. The motor died and I took it apart and it looked identical to your motor and the same thing happened with the gear.

[@deerfish3000]

A mechanical 7 segment display. Interesting!

[@bernielarrivee5448]

What a splendidly complex machine. All that for an alarm clock. I love these videos. You rock, Fran.

[@LakeNipissing]

General Electric made some clock radios in the late 1960s / early 1970s with similar mechanical digits clocks. Instead of neon, they had a holder with two wedge base incandescent bulbs to illuminate the digits from the back, so they were white instead of red, since the clock face plate was clear plastic with black shutters and black painted mask in front of it all. I have two or three of them and they still work. I sent Big Clive a smaller General Electric alarm clock (no radio) with this type of backlit mechanical digit clock for him to experiment with.

[@skweek256]

Amazing and totally fascinating! :D

[@omniverideus]

Thanks for the great video! May I recommend, when you're faced with plastic release clips holding housings together; proceed with the corner of an old credit card to release them easily with minimal damage. I've opened and closed thousands of laptops in this way without breaking a single catch, and no indentations left in the housing. :)

[@user-wk1sl6tq3p]

During my mid 20s i use to work as an architectural and industriaI draftsman during the mid 90s, i can only imagine how intricate the construction drawing of this device would have been for manufacturing. It will be tedious but I'm sure back then I'll see it as fun😂 challenge , I love sliding pencils on large cut of papers back then.😊

[@Gary-fc5tk]

Great tear down Fran, I repaired pinballs and juke boxes for 20 years, I love your tear down efforts, great job, love your videos, gary

[@pepegarcia6348]

Hello Fran. I don't know why, but the subtitles can't be activated in your videos. If it's something you can configure, I would greatly appreciate it. I love your channel, but I find it difficult to understand spoken English.

[@SlackJones1]

You should have told me! I have a whole warehouse full of those!

[@ericlohr315]

Just this exact model of do you have other Lumitime clocks as well. I'm looking for one badly.

[@petramunster8635]

It's fascinating that building all that mechanics was cheaper than just using LEDs and electronics to drive them.

[@brunoshow124]

That motor reminds me a lot of Intermatic motors. While the little cam to reverse direction is definitely different, that drive pinion on the rotor looks remarkably similar. You might be able to try and replace that pinion with one of those. The only reason they used soft plastic was to keep gear noise down. A hard plastic or metal gear could also be used, it'll just be more noisy. The cam to reverse direction could definitely be 3D printed.

[@joeceretti9098]

OH MAHH GORD YOU GOT YOUR LUMITIME!?!??!?! OR DID YOU!!>?!?!? yes I am yelling before watching the entire video.. tie to watch then will update this

[@herby4215]

Very nice devices

[@linuxbeastmaster9192]

Light emitting digits instead of diodes, Love this alarm clock,

[@8bitwarrior]

At least there’s a possibility of finding another broken one with a good motor

[@davidbono9359]

I recently bought a non-working but great cosmetic condition Lumitime YT-102 alarm clock. It appears to be very similar to this one (the front bezel and the "starburst" are bit different, and it might be a Japan-only model). It very likely has the same internal mechanism as your clock. Mine lights up but the time doesn't advance, so it could have a similar problem as yours. I haven't had time to open it up yet but I'll be interested to see if it also has a dead motor / disintegrated gear.

[@mrbusdriversir]

Thanks for showing this to us “curious people” out there. You’re one of my favorite ones.

[@ericcarabetta1161]

This clock is so much more hilariously complicated than an LED, it’s hard to imagine this was the “cheap” option over them.

[@mrnmrn1]

I hope you measured that gear before reassembly. It would worth some search for it at DIY RC part sellers. Even ali and fleabay has a wide selection of small gears for peanuts.

[@nicholasn.]

i learned a new thing today-fubar-had to look it up... thanks Fran 🙏🏻

[@fredblonder7850]

I once bought gasoline from a pump that used one of these seven-segment mechanical displays. The “cents” digit moved especially rapidly, so I suspect the louvers were moved by solenoids rather than cams.

[@CARLiCON]

nice Demo Fran..gotta admire the Japanese engineering, instead of mechanical lit digits, they lit the whole thing up & animated shutters to create an "anti-display," if you will. The engineering had to tackle what segments to turn "off," rather than "on," that's simply awesome! thanks for sharing

[@dhpbear2]

2:00 - I'm guessing it's poor translation; the translator saw the title 'LIGHT EMITTING (no comma or m-dash!) DIGITAL ALARM CLOCK and thought that 'LED' stood for 'Light Emitting Digital' :)

[@ericfielding2540]

Amazing system of cams and louvers.

[@Regaljester75]

Just watched a documentary about the invention of the infamous blue LED, fascinating stuff

[@grandadgamer8390]

Jeez wot an incredible device! Says everything for the price of LEDs back then😂

[@Studio23Media]

6 minute snooze button?! That's not long enough! 😂

[@BarneysVideos]

Regarding the disintegrated gear: lathe! Maybe one of your subscribers has a fabrication shop and could make you another one.

[@FranLab]

You don't make gears on a lathe - but if I really wanted to make one, I would. But I don't.

[@tonymanzo3766]

There’s a whole lot of stuff for that motor to turn, if all of those cams and followers and gears aren’t perfectly lubricated that broken pinion on the motor is the weakest link. Judging by the package it would be 1970 vintage. Couldn’t you raid a gear from another junk clock, cool if it worked.

[@bradpittiful7288]

got a ge alarm clock that im still using since the early 80s

[@PhilsPhreeGifts]

interesting, and wow what a headache designing that must have been.

[@elvinhaak]

Thanks for this video. Very interesting how they made this complex clock.

[@matthewday7565]

Maybe adapt it to a stepper motor and gear, and then you could have a high speed demo mode

[@user-nd8zh3ir7v]

Wow had you not explained the louver, I never would have understood how that thing worked. Great Job!