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Epicycle Clock (sophiehoulden.com)
30 points by jvandonsel on June 25, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments



It would be nice if the "epicycle clock" words at the bottom would link to an explanation on Wikipedia or something (or display a popup).

Also, with the dark mode extension the white background is black, but all the black numbers/line are still black (not white) which makes it only show the minutes and seconds hands. And it looks quite confusing.

Still nice though


This is cool. Makes me want to see if a mechanical version of this could be done.


i prototyped this using two windshield motors (powerful worm gears for cheap) and two slip rings to transfer power / position data between the arms

it looks awesome but I need to work on making it easier to produce by figuring out a better way to sense where the connecting arm is (hall effect?), and do more work to account for backlash in the relatively inexpensive / tolerant worm drives

i built one that rotates about the hour hand and another the rotates about the minute hand to try both ways out; it's pretty cool to see the whole thing swing around once an hour but probably not something you want in a home...


I would find this much less confusing if the minute of every hour was "north"/"up"


This is looks quite aesthetic.

Also a super analogy to show new programmers how complexity increases if you introduce unnecessary dependencies.


Very nice!




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