aeh5040 Posted January 12 Posted January 12 (edited) Video of final model (see below for development thread) ---- Not quite sure what to call this thing... A machine to instantly calculate the day of the week for any calendar day of any year (e.g. birthdays, etc.) There will be four hand turned knobs to select the century, year, month and date, and the day of the week will then be displayed. The idea is to do it with differentials, and lots of 1:7 gear ratios. Leap years will be accounted for automatically by an extra lever that adjusts the selection for Jan and Feb (hopefully!) The biggest enemy is gear lash. However, I believe my current prototype shows that it can be done (just). I use a very precise detent mechanism for the knobs, and then gear up before the differentials and down at the end... Hopefully custom stickers for the dials are allowed... A long way to go! Edited February 12 by aeh5040 Quote
Davidz90 Posted January 12 Posted January 12 Wow, that's a very interesting and ambitious project. I believe You would need some way to encode the length of individual months to make this work? Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 12 Author Posted January 12 (edited) 13 minutes ago, Davidz90 said: Wow, that's a very interesting and ambitious project. I believe You would need some way to encode the length of individual months to make this work? Thanks! Not exactly - the plan is for it to work similarly to the methods described at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determination_of_the_day_of_the_week. So there will be a month dial with 7 (or more likely 14) positions geared to the month knob, with the months suitably arranged (not in order) around it. Some of the slots will have more than one possible month in them. The dial for the last two digits of the year will have 14 positions, with leap and non leap years alternating, and again many different years in each position. In my head I have a fully functional design, although the practicalities won't be easy. Not sure whether I'll actually get it done by the deadline, but in any case it will provide good motivation! Handling the year 2000 (and 1600 and 2400) presents an extra challenge, since they are leap years, but other years ending in 00 are not. I think I have a solution to this that is actually a bit nicer than the calculating methods listed on Wikipedia. More to come... Edited January 12 by aeh5040 Quote
Davidz90 Posted January 12 Posted January 12 Really interesting, this topic seems to be a real rabbit hole! I wasn't aware that there are so many different algorithms! Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 12 Author Posted January 12 1 minute ago, Davidz90 said: Really interesting, this topic seems to be a real rabbit hole! I wasn't aware that there are so many different algorithms! I think most of those listed are really variations on the same one. Thanks for your interest! Quote
Berthil Posted January 12 Posted January 12 (edited) Very interesting. Maybe you can also add the 12 Chinese animal zodiacs and/or the 7 Buddha postures of the determined week day The latter is easier. I'm a Horse and have the reclining Buddha. The Bilion year clock of Brick Technology has year subtractors, maybe it helps. It also has one 3D printed gear to enable the clock, I hope you don't need one. Good luck and fun with the build. Edited January 12 by Berthil links added Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 12 Author Posted January 12 (edited) In case anyone is interested, I experimented with custom diffs like this to reduce the gear lash, but there was way too much friction, not to mention the bulkiness. The current approach seems the most promising. Edited January 12 by aeh5040 Quote
1gor Posted January 12 Posted January 12 To make you more complicated; leap years have three criteria: - year must be bigger or equal 1584 - year must be divisable by 100 and 400 at the same time and - year must be divisable by 4 Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 12 Author Posted January 12 4 hours ago, 1gor said: To make you more complicated; leap years have three criteria: - year must be bigger or equal 1584 - year must be divisable by 100 and 400 at the same time and - year must be divisable by 4 Not more complicated. All this is accounted for, except that I will stick to the Gregorian calendar 1600-2400. Quote
ord Posted January 13 Posted January 13 Wow, another interesting entry. Curious to see how you handle leap years and the '400 year rule'. Quote
1gor Posted January 13 Posted January 13 (edited) 5 hours ago, aeh5040 said: Not more complicated. All this is accounted for, except that I will stick to the Gregorian calendar 1600-2400. That is exactly what I meant; on February 24th 1582 Pope Gregory III introduced this civil calendar after Papal bull Inter gravissimas and after 4th october next day was 15th to make necessary corrections based on study taken by physician and astrologist Aloysius Lilius... Edited January 13 by 1gor Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 15 Author Posted January 15 (edited) Some progress on the leap year selector mechanism: Seems a bit of a shame to put stickers on this drum, but trans blue was the most affordable colour! Edited January 15 by aeh5040 Quote
Aurorasaurus Posted January 15 Posted January 15 51 minutes ago, aeh5040 said: Seems a bit of a shame to put stickers on this drum, but trans blue was the most affordable colour! You can always take them off and clean it :) This looks like a huge project, I wont pretend I understand how you're doing it. Good luck and great work so far. Quote
ord Posted January 15 Posted January 15 The year is selected first then the red carriage will move to one of two positions depending if it's a leap year or not, if I understand correctly? 1 hour ago, aeh5040 said: Seems a bit of a shame to put stickers on this drum, but trans blue was the most affordable colour! Maybe you could use the 14-tooth sprocket with treads with tiles attached: Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 16 Author Posted January 16 34 minutes ago, ord said: The year is selected first then the red carriage will move to one of two positions depending if it's a leap year or not, if I understand correctly? Maybe you could use the 14-tooth sprocket with treads with tiles attached: Leap year - yes, exactly that! I did try this, but it ends up pretty bulky and heavy. The cylinder is lighter weight. 1 hour ago, Aurorasaurus said: You can always take them off and clean it :) This looks like a huge project, I wont pretend I understand how you're doing it. Good luck and great work so far. Thank you for the encouragement! We'll see whether it actually works... Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 20 Author Posted January 20 (edited) Some progress. Getting the overall size and shape pinned down. MLCad is proving invaluable. The monster cylinder at the bottom is needed for the final two digits of the year, which will need up to 12 options per row. Edited January 20 by aeh5040 Quote
Davidz90 Posted January 20 Posted January 20 Whoa, what a beast! I'm trying to deduce the exact mechanism from the photo, but I think I'll wait for physical model and some videos. Offloading most of the calculations to some specific pattern on the drums is a very clever solution. Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 20 Author Posted January 20 (edited) It's simpler than it looks. Basically 3 diffs sum the inputs to the 4 bottom drums and output the result to the top (day of week) one. The 4 inputs have very strong and precise detent mechanisms. Finally, the year drum also controls the sliding (alternating) leap year window on the month drum. It is crucial that 7 and 2 are coprime. The "offloading" is not really my idea. This is how the existing tabular day-of-week methods work. The devil is in the details. Currently the devil is finding plenty of details to occupy himself with. Edited January 20 by aeh5040 Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 31 Author Posted January 31 OK, major updates. I think it is close to being finished apart from the "programming" of the drums. Basically all these bits just need sticking together. It was *much* harder than I anticipated. Getting the necessary bracing to fit around the bulky cylinders was a real challenge. However I am now somewhat confident that it will work, and quite excited! Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 31 Author Posted January 31 It will do Gregorian calendar 1601 - 2399. This could be extended by adding more entries to the century dial. Quote
SAM1626 Posted January 31 Posted January 31 Not going to pretend I could do this but this is very cool and I can't wait for the final results Quote
aeh5040 Posted January 31 Author Posted January 31 (edited) The side panels are really tricky. They need to be strong enough to accommodate the springs for the detent mechanisms, while allowing the various axles and gears to pass through. Curiously, I have not used any frames or panels, and it is likely to stay this way... Edited January 31 by aeh5040 Quote
SAM1626 Posted January 31 Posted January 31 1 hour ago, aeh5040 said: OK, major updates. I think it is close to being finished apart from the "programming" of the drums. Basically all these bits just need sticking together. It was *much* harder than I anticipated. Getting the necessary bracing to fit around the bulky cylinders was a real challenge. However I am now somewhat confident that it will work, and quite excited! just wondering how many pieces is this currently and where did you get the special colored shock absorbers that are in this picture? Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.