Giant Steampunk Clock Sets Itself

After being commissioned to build a piece of “mechanical wall art,” Redditor “Spdltd” convinced his client to make it into an actual working clock. The result is a steampunk-inspired, electromechanical masterpiece — made out of copper, brass, steel, aluminum and stainless steel — that uses a stepper motor, chains, and sprockets to coordinate movement.

When powered on, an Arduino Yún retrieves the local time from the Internet over Wi-Fi and goes through a setting procedure. This means first moving the central wheel to read 12:00, using a Hall effect sensor with a series of metal tabs for alignment. It then rotates itself into the actual time based on this known starting position.

You can see more of the project in the video below as well as in Spdltd’s Reddit post here.