Soyuz Electro-Mechanical Space Clock - Part I: Grand Opening

We open up an early Soviet space clock to discover an electro-mechanical marvel, and make it tick again. Part 2 with a lot more details here: • Soyuz Electro-Mechanic... . Full livestream replay of the clock opening here: • Soyuz Space Clock Live... .
Music is from the classic Macintosh Tetris game
- file downloadable from this page: www.curiousmarc.com/space/soy...
- see my Mac SE/30 play it: • Soyuz Clock Part 2: Re...
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Contact info: kzbin.infoa...

[@TheRealColBosch]

"The video was seven hours long...I plan on doing a more in-depth video later." Never change, Marc.

[@markm0000]

Wow that clock is crazy loud. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would have been to sleep with that much noise around.

[@rkan2]

I imagine other life support equipment deafened this out pretty nicely..

[@Faolmor]

Wonder how obnoxious it was in the Soyuz capsule with all the clickety clacks of Soviet solenoids, motors, and relays.

[@Pistoletjes]

I has a power (or enable/disable) switch so I guess they wouldn't have to run it continuously?

[@johanrg70]

You don't sleep on duty, comrade! Perhaps it's not THAT bad when it's in it's enclosed space though. Or everything else around it will sound just as much and drown out this sound.

[@aserta]

After a while the ticking becomes monotone, and you sleep like a baby. Up there, i'd imagine it even gives a sense of security, the "symphony" of mechanical beats, the pulse of the ship.

[@ojkolsrud1]

These clocks just look so damn beautiful.

[@arenaengineering8070]

It will be interesting for you to know that until recently (and maybe even now) the control system of the metro of the city of Minsk (Belarus 🇧🇾) uses an electromechanical system for synchronizing all clocks at metro stations. It is arranged as follows: the radio signal of the exact time is received by a specialized receiver, from which the relay output goes to the control clock, and from them to the rack with more than a hundred electromechanical clocks, similar to the space clock in the video, only a little simpler in design and which allows you to adjust the time for each station, taking into account the transmission delay from the length of the wires. An electrical control signal from this electromechanical clock is sent to each station. This allows maintaining the accuracy of readings of all several hundred clocks at all metro stations in 1 second, despite tens of kilometers of wires. And at the stations, electromechanical clocks only for industrial use (with a large round dial) are also used at crossings and electronic ones to display the time of the train movement interval. And only on the new, built in 2017-2020, the third line of the Minsk metro, everything is done using modern technologies, computer control and fiber-optic communication lines.

[@CuriousMarc]

Thanks for the story! That’s so cool that it is still in use! I own a large station flip clock from Italy (a Solari Udine), that is such a mechanical slave clock controlled by the station master clock. It’s from 1957. See the video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eqiYaoelp86jgac

[@arenaengineering8070]

@@CuriousMarc thaks. Beautiful flip clock.

[@fabiosemino2214]

@@CuriousMarc your video helped a lot on restoring and giving a modern master to an old Cifra12, this episode gave me similar vibes :)

[@RinoaL]

Damn thats a cool clock.

[@worldtraveler930]

Yeah, Now I Want One!! 😃

[@brundaged1]

I imagine the cosmonauts were grateful for the upgrade to silent electronics.

[@CuriousMarc]

Oh man, this one is unbelievably loud. I had it on in the lab for over 24 hours to get the day totalizer to update. It drove me cra-zy.

[@rkan2]

I wonder if you could hear it from the noise of life support equipment. Somehow I feel like hearing this in orbit would've meant the clock REALLY was ticking.

[@DanafoxyVixen]

Id imagine it'll be alittle quieter with the back cover on....

[@ericpaul4575]

And mounted into the control panel.

[@richardlincoln886]

There is something 'real & alive' about a clock ticking though - in the mix of other sounds/life support etc, perhaps it was a good thing to hear in the background.

[@Sharklops]

that panel with the globe is awesome

[@MattMastracci]

The intro music really vibes for me. I love these.

[@rwdplz1]

Imagine using a spacecraft clock as your alarm clock

[@ZacCrawforth]

I don't understand why this makes me so happy, BUT IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY!

[@TechGorilla1987]

Each and every one of your videos is like a trip to see Phineas J. Whoopie and his magic 3D blackboard. Only older folks will get that. Phineas J. Whoopie, you're the greatest!

[@paulhammond7489]

A thing of the purest electro-mechanical beauty. 😊

[@Kae6502]

Wonderful and beautiful design and construction. Thank you Marc, Ken and Steve! :D

[@fgaviator]

With the ticking so loud, it'd be appropriate to have a loud wall-clock gong, too! 🙂

[@markfergerson2145]

68 year old 'Murican science-space geek here. This is so cool. So much of this kind of thing was scrapped or is corroding away in abandoned warehouses these days. Nice to see a least a few pieces rescued and restored.

[@retrocomputerskarachi6158]

Thank you for bringing back a great piece of space history. Greetings from Karachi, Pakistan.

[@ShayBlez]

Thank you for syncing up the clock in time with the bgm at the end :) amazing little clock there too!

[@ivanrogov5585]

Отличные часы. Многие вещи которые были сделаны в СССР, работают и сейчас. И века проработают. Удачи вам!)

[@Kithzer]

У Германа были похожие и на форуме подобные показывали.

[@henrykmielczarek3189]

Prawda , Rosja jest najlepsza i piękna .pozdrawiam z Polski .

[@I967]

Beautiful mechanism. Very nice!

[@Qwerty1235945]

What a truly beautiful instrument.

[@EmbSys]

It is interesting that the clock was still used in the Buran. Obviously it is easier to read and more intuitive to operate. Nice Video!

[@gregsochor]

The start of the chronometer not being immediate makes perfect sense, when you use it for maneuvres, as probably one cosmonaut was in charge of the burn and the other (most likely commander) in charge of timing it correctly. (Just an assumption.) Gorgeous video as always.

[@GrumpyTim]

I love that sound, it's quite sinister - another excellent Soviet space clock video - cheers Marc :-)

[@syntaxerorr]

Crazy to think someone thought flat head screws are the best choice for this job.

[@stevencarlson5422]

Such beautiful precision and engineering

[@colinsmith6480]

awesome watching you getting these things running

[@bigsarge2085]

Fascinating as always!

[@GadgetUK164]

Amazing piece of engineering!

[@MarcelHuguenin]

Again an amazing piece of engineering! They only failed to have a silencer switch on it :-/ You turn out to be an amazing clock-doctor Marc, I love your approach and admire your skills!

[@MayhemCanuck]

Analog, so beautiful :)

[@aaronr.9644]

what a beautiful piece of kit :)

[@thisman1906]

Nice job guys!

[@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365]

Love the added pictures in the intro

[@CuriousMarc]

Thanks! I started to add more background and details, and it became too long and took away from the excitement of the discovery. So I backtracked, just left the short intro, and kept the Livestream summary cut I had made for Patreon pretty much intact. I’m planning to put more details about the clock design and operation in a second video.

[@GeeWillikersMan]

Looks well built. Strong like bull.

[@MaxKoschuh]

excellent, as always

[@linmal2242]

'Bravo' to the brilliant Russian engineers and technicians who built this clock!

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

The Russians sure do love retrotech - - tried and true

[@ArtemKashkanovLive]

Nice! Waiting for Part.2 :)

[@CuriousMarc]

That’s the part were you will be featured ;-)

[@ArtemKashkanovLive]

@@CuriousMarc I'm also waiting for a few more technical details review of this clock.

[@binariti]

Даже в космической технике они использовали провод МГТФ! Он и сейчас остаётся лучшим проводом для пайки!

[@slick4401]

That clock is just beautiful. Thanks for bringing it back to a well deserved life.

[@fabiohaddad2531]

Very nice video, extremely interesting equipment!

[@malakiblunt]

best pronunciation of patron ever. the clock is cool too .

[@therocinante3443]

How are you this talented with electromechanics? I'm blown away.

[@msylvain59]

You must love your subscribers a lot to release such a video for Valentines day :-)

[@jondhuse1549]

Very, very nice - thanks!

[@KC-vp7wn]

Wow that's beautiful

[@bdhaliwal24]

What a beautiful clock

[@russellhltn1396]

Thank goodness you made a condensed version. I wasn't looking forward to watching that livestream.

[@russellcresser5826]

Truly Wonderful.

[@AL6S00740]

Damn I love this ... so cool :D

[@worldtraveler930]

Okay, Now I Want One!!! 😃

[@ChrisAthanas]

Amazing old tech

[@arturgudiev6013]

The clocks are so satisfying

[@pabblo6103]

That clock is so sexy. Maybe a kickstarter should happen to make a reproduction. Have the option for relay driven or more modern movement that makes quieter ticks. And it would join wifi to sync with an atomic ntp server.

[@arenaengineering8070]

This electromechanical clock has another very significant advantage - it is not afraid of cosmic radiation. And they will tick even when radiation from a supernova explosion destroys all living things around.

[@chutipascal]

Very cool metronome!

[@diobrando2160]

I'm interested in the globe module on the panel

[@user-yu5qg4jc3l]

After cosmonauts have been returned to Earth, they probably couldn't get rid of the tickings inside their heads for whole rest life.

[@mymessylab]

Wow so cool staff! Vintage equipment to drive vintage clock. By the way it seems they (cccp) designed a quartz clock with all the mechanical hardware but the quartz....😬😬. Another interesting video with lovable background music. 👍👍

[@MLX1401]

When Marc opened the chassy I was like "oh this looks like an electronic clock" xD

[@RinoaL]

I love that tetris song. its so adorable.

[@jecceworks]

Where can I find that version it? I want to hear the whole song!

[@CuriousMarc]

Music is from the classic Macintosh Tetris game - file downloadable from this page: www.curiousmarc.com/computing/soyuz-clock-744h - see the Mac SE/30 play it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZ7IpZqEhbFgfrM

[@jecceworks]

@@CuriousMarc nice, thanks!

[@LeKudesnitsa]

It is Polyushko-polye (Полюшко-поле). Can be searched as the Song of The Plains, those video has translation.

[@jecceworks]

@@LeKudesnitsa that is the orinal version, you are correct but I wanted the mac version which Marc did gave a link to

[@dr.zarkhov9753]

Nice balance to the layout of that face.

[@JorgeRuizGonzalez]

Beautiful 👌🏽👏🏻👏🏻

[@muzzdeni28]

Did Chris from ClickSpring go back in time an build it?

[@CuriousMarc]

This is very Clickspringy indeed!

[@vagishgpatil6637]

May b😁

[@arenaengineering8070]

🤔😁

[@wacholder5690]

Hi Marc ! It was - a bit - surprising to see you use Wiha screwdrivers. :-) At least one thing we have in common - even though the work and research I use those for isn't that elaborated. Good work, good video. Thanks for sharing !

[@movax20h]

Love the 24h dial. No 12h rubish.

[@martincerveny2284]

Imagine listen to this clock for a day :-D

[@McTroyd]

It would be awesome to have something like this as a live stream. Anyone in a different time zone could just scrub backward on the stream until the time on the clock matches. 😁

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

_"We're expecting all those screws removed by the end of the live stream."_ *NO PRESSURE...😉*

[@emmanuelr6698]

Marc, that's awesome. Thanks for sharing, I´d be very interested to know what was the error rate of this clock. Atomic precision seems very ambitious !

[@CuriousMarc]

Didn’t skip a second for a 28 hour run, but then my ears asked for relief and I turned it off...

[@sonic-mine]

Токаря ювелиры. Советское качество. Эпоха умных, трудолюбивых и образованных людей!!!

[@codebeat4192]

Nice clock to put at a desk in the office :-D

[@andrewrixon2347]

The loudness of the clock must have been reassuring to the Cosmonauts because timing is everything in space flight. Whilst the clocks still ticking, the heart & brain of the spacecraft still lives. No ticking = no timing = don’t know when we’re supposed to do something !

[@ReneSchickbauer]

Yeah, in this kind of situations, a sound going away is much more concerning. It's the same for the life support equipment. Cosmonauts get used to the noise of the fans and pumps in their many months and years of training. It's when the noise stops that they get very worried.

[@olegandriievskyi8885]

That’s cool thing,Красота то какая!!

[@vincentguttmann2231]

Well, thanks for the video! You sound a lot younger than you look, and I was quite surprised.

[@blenderbuch]

That click would drive me nuts in a small space capsule...

[@BTGDelta]

Hey Mark, does the background light work properly? I'd be interested to see how it looks like when lit. :)

[@CuriousMarc]

Yes, it’s a night light, and only the base sort of lights up in normal light. Actually, this is greatly improved from the original which is super dim and yellowish, I put LEDs in there.

[@toxanbi]

What duty cycle did use use during this testing? Does the rhythmic pattern of its clicking depends on the duty cycle at all? If so, feeding it with 50% duty pulses should give less annoying clicking, I presume.

[@rivards1]

Lots of people asking about the music - it's the Russian song "Meadowlands". Glenn Miller did a great American version of it, but there are lots of USSR military performances of it on KZbin also.

[@jaybrooks1098]

Should have a live stream of it

[@docnele]

Okay, basically, this is mainly a beatiful (and loud!) watch-face. What really made it tick? Newer model had internal and external source, this one obvioulsy had only external source. What was it? Was it same or simmilar to external source for newer model? I guess "Buran" got it because of readability (because cosmonauts are further from control panel).

[@biohazardousBiker]

Good question. maybe the advantage of the digital clock was that it had it's own backup timing. I also would like to know.

[@thepumpkingking8339]

With some Brass and Mahogany this would make a grand Steampunk pacemaker.

[@m0kov]

7 hours! Did you stop for lunch? Great video.

[@CuriousMarc]

Yes I did at about 3 pm. I was very hungry...

[@greendryerlint]

I wonder if the constant clicking of the solenoid(s) ever drove any Soviet space crews mad? Possibly they were subjected to an extra loud version of it in their training. Cool video. I'll bet they were happy when the clocks became digital.

[@artursmihelsons415]

That's cool, but very loud.. Great video!

[@johnmyviews3761]

A wristwatch version would be a dream

[@santi0797]

I need the 10 hour version of that clock ticking with the soviet music

[@docnele]

I guess you work at Gitmo ;)

[@santi0797]

@@docnele good ole Gitmo soviet clock with soviet music, the good old days

[@MrZiGG]

2:07 В детстве, в нашем доме был такой ночник - в виде ракеты!!! Куда же он делся... Может это он и есть?)

[@jcota2003]

I don't get everyone complaining about how loud it is. I love the sound it makes. Same as I do for all mechanical clocks like a grandfather clock etc. My grandparents had this huge and beautiful grandfather clock that you could hear throughout their house with full quarter hour chimes and all.

[@PixelSchnitzel]

Curious Pixel Schnitzel's channel: "Well, I'm out of my element. Time to ship it off to someone who knows what they're doing!"

[@krz8888888]

Does this one also has an internal oscillator ? Or are they only externally driven ?

[@TeslaTales59]

I have the HP 59309A Digital Clock seen in the background also!

[@CuriousMarc]

Isn’t it a cute clock? I had no idea it could be driven by the Cesium at 5MHz also, I found out pretty recently. You need to set a switch inside the clock.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

"EVERYONE, THERE'S A SOVIET BOMB UNDER THIS BUILDING AND WE HAVE TO FIND IT!" *Cachunk vachunk cachunk* "Oh never mind, found it."

[@michaelthomasbauer3827]

if it will detect 2water / digital to analog - your lab is a beauty

[@cheapasstech]

Would this just be a plug and play replacement for the digital one? Or is the wiring different?

[@JDHogg]

Like when you are a child trying to fall asleep at a relatives house.

[@paulyoung181]

Damn that is a loud clock!

[@crankyunicorn4423]

it so loud feeling sorry for the cosmonauts that have to sleep with that noise

[@vrzn]

Oeh, some more space bits

[@snarkylive]

When you step outside for a walk, and can still hear the mission clock through vacuum.

[@ikocheratcr]

Interesting decision in the design, they took the solenoid path for the ticking, instead of a synchronous motor. I wonder if it there is some other requirement behind.