Kyle Rankin's Tempus Nectit Is a 3D-Printed Raspberry Pi-Powered Clock That Turns Time Into Fabric
Inspired by a closed source build, Rankin has put together a more compact 22-hook knitting clock which turns a year into a scarf.
Purism's Kyle Rankin has released a design for an unusual 3D-printed clock that uses a Raspberry Pi and a circular knitting machine to turn time into fabric, creating a scarf as it ticks away the minutes of the day.
Rankin's project was inspired by another, by Siren Elise Wilhelmsen. "Wilhelmsen's clock was designed as an art project that showed the passage of time by knitting a stitch every half hour, a row every day," Rankin explains. "This seemed like such a cool thing to have on my wall. I wanted one. Unfortunately the site didn't go into any details on how the clock was made, and only featured a short artistic video showing it in operation."
Rather than commission one, then, Rankin set about working out how the device operates from first principles — in order to not only build his own, but to release a guide on how others can do the same. "Even without any instructions, if you break down what this clock is into its individual components, it isn't all that complicated," Rankin says. "You need: a 48-hook circular knitting machine; a stepper motor attached to the hand crank; electronics to control the stepper motor; [and] software to turn the motor one stitch every 30 minutes."
Raiding the parts bin, Rankin put together a stepper motor salvaged from an old 3D printer, a Raspberry Pi single-board computer, and a "willingness to learn new skills," then added a few additional parts: an Adafruit Motor HAT, to ease interfacing the Raspberry Pi and the stepper motor; a smaller-than-planned 22-hook Sentro knitting machine, in order to reduce the overall size of the build, and custom-designed 3D-printed parts.
"Our plan for the clock is to knit a scarf that represents the current year," says Rankin of the machine, which he has named Tempus Nectit. "It will have a black background but significant days in the year (certain holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, family trips) will be marked with different colored yarn. That way when we remove the scarf at the end of the year, we will see different colored stripes marking special moments throughout the year."
The full project write-up, including a bill of materials, Python source code, a link to printable files for the 3D-printed parts, and full assembly instructions, is available on Rankin's website.
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