Erich Styger's MetaClockClock78 Clock-of-Clocks Display Is the Biggest Yet
78 individual two-hand analog clockfaces work in tandem to produce this mesmerizing programmable display.
Embedded engineer and professor Erich Styger is back with yet another clock-of-clocks, and this time it's the biggest and heaviest yet — and can be daisy-chained if you think it's still not heavy enough in singular form: the MetaClockClock78.
"A 'MetaClockClock' is a clock made of clock, arranged in a matrix organization," Styger explains of the growing family of unusual displays. "The hands of each clock can be controlled individually. That way, it can 'draw' text or orchestrate moving patterns. My previous build used the concept of an oak wood front panel with 60 clocks. I used the same idea for the front panel. But instead of a single clock, I have built two clocks with 78 units each."
The clock-of-clocks concept is easier to see in action than to explain, and works as follows: the display is formed by creating a matrix of more-or-less traditional two-handed clocks, though in a twist the hour and minute hands both reach all the way to the circumference of the clock's face — and are distinguished by programmable color instead.
A clock made of 78 clocks might be good for tracking a ridiculous number of different timezones, but Styger has another use in mind: the hands of the clocks can be aligned to join with those of the clocks surrounding them, with the lighting shifted in order to "draw" block-figure numbers or short textual messages. As a result, a matrix of 78 clocks can be used to display the time in four-digit format.
The 78 clocks that make up Styger's latest MetaClockClock are driven by dual-shaft stepper motors, with 40 RGB LEDs lighting up each clock — making 3,120 in total. The bill of materials comes out at around $1,500, Styger explains, and if you've twice that burning a hole in your wallet you can make two and daisy-chain them over RS-485. Building it may take a while, though: the project took around 26 hours of CNC time, 52 hours of 3D printing, and around 60 minutes of laser cutting, over the course of a three-month design and build period.
More information is available on Styger's blog; design files and source code for the whole MetaClockClock family are available on GitHub under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.