For those living in the continental US who, for whatever reason, don’t have access to an NTP server or a GPS device, the next best way to make sure the correct time is known is with the WWVB radio signal. Transmitting out of Colorado, the 60-bit 1 Hz signal reaches all 48 states in the […]
Let’s say you want to build a Nixie clock. You could go out and find some tubes, source a good power supply design, start whipping up a PCB, and working on a custom enclosure. Or, you could skip all that, and just follow [Simon]’s example instead. The trick to building a Nixie clock fast is […]
Do you like buses, or do you just like the flippy-flappy displays they use to show route information? Either way, you’ll probably love the flip-disc clock created by [David Plass]. The build is based around four seven-segment flip disc displays. The modules in question are from Flipo.io. They use a hefty 0.5 amp pulse to […]
The HP 115BR is not one of the most well-known products from Hewlett-Packard. And yet, it was remarkably important nonetheless. This hardware once synced time around the world. Now, for our 2025 One-Hertz Challenge, [curiousmarc] has taken on the job of restoring it. The HP 115BR itself was not used alone, but in concert with […]
Wall clocks! Are they very accurate? Well, sometimes they are, and sometimes they lose minutes a day. If you’ve got one that needs calibrating, you might like this device from [Lauri Pirttiaho]. Most cheap wall clocks use very similar mechanisms based around the Lavet-type stepper motor. These are usually driven by a chip-on-board oscillator that […]
You can buy all kinds of conventional clocks that have hands and numbers for easy reading. Or, like [Fabio Ricci], you could build yourself something a little more esoteric, like this neat shadow clock. The heart of the build is an ESP8266 microcontroller, which gets the current time via Wi-Fi by querying an NTP time […]
Just about every electronic device has some silicon semiconductors inside these days—from transistors to diodes to integrated circuits. [Charles] is trying to build a “No-Silicon digital clock” that used none of these parts. It looks like [Charles] is on the way to success, but one might like to point out an amusing technicality. Let’s dive […]
We’ve all felt the frustration of cheap consumer electronics — especially when they aren’t actually cheap. How many of us have said “Who designed this crap? I could do better with an Arduino!” while resisting the urge to drop that new smart doorbell in the garbage disposal? It’s an all-too familiar thought, and when it […]
[danjovic] came up with a nifty entry for our 2025 One-Hertz Challenge that lands somewhere between the categories of Ridiculous and Clockwork. It’s a clock that few hackers, if any, could read on sight—just the way we like them around here! The clock is called Hexa U.T.C, which might give you an idea why this […]
What if you build a clock that displayed the time not just on its own, but in its shadows as well? [Lewis] from [DIY Machines] has done just that, with a nifty 3D-printed shadow clock build. The clock itself has a hollow rim inside which are the two hands which actually display the time. The […]