[MOC] Mechanical tilt display

[ord]

Version 1:

Since the release of the Powered Up Technic Hub, I've wanted to experiment with its internal tilt sensor(s).
This is the result; a mechanical seven-segment display that shows the pitch of an 'aircraft' accurate to 10 degrees.

It works by having 4 motors each controlling 2 segments of the display (8 moving segments total) via cams.
Each motor moves to one of 4 positions, putting its respective segments to OFF-OFF, ON-OFF, OFF-ON or ON-ON.

It's not as responsive as I had hoped but was a fun little build

 

 

Version 2:

(See post below for more information)

Edited March 26, 2021 by ord

[mortenm]

Nice! 

How about some pics of the mechanisms? 

[sirslayer]

and the programming!! Please!!   like a quick look at your code blocks for verification!!!!  :) 

 

[ord]

Here are some pics of the mechanisms. It is really quite simple: blue cams are horizontal segments and red cams are vertical segments. The segments fall back due to gravity
 

 

The code is the complicated part (screenshot here). Basically:

• The first loop returns the tilt angle as an integer between -9 and 9 (and its modulus for simpler coding later on)
• The second loop rotates the motors (in parallel) every time this value changes. Motor positions are determined by...
• The next four loops. They constantly determine which segments should be on or off, depending on the integer(s) returned in the first loop

Edited April 25, 2020 by ord

[ord]

Version 2:

I'd like to present version 2 of this MOC. Taking inspiration from aeh5040's seven-segment display, this version features:

• Control by a single shaft/motor
• Number incrementing and decrementing
• Faster response time than version 1

Unfortunately, mostly due to the goal of having only one input, this version doesn't feature a 'minus sign' segment.
 

Edited February 2, 2021 by ord
Removed image linking to Flickr

[Touc4nx]

Wow. 
That's some pretty impressive mechanical work, Nice Job.
It seems pretty reliable. 
Do you think it could be stacked (horizontally) ?

[ord]

13 hours ago, Touc4nx said:

Wow. 
That's some pretty impressive mechanical work, Nice Job.
It seems pretty reliable. 
Do you think it could be stacked (horizontally) ?

Thank you .

I don't see why it couldn't be stacked (to make a 0-99 counter, if that's what you mean).
That would actually be pretty cool; it would just require a mechanism that steps every 10th rotation and can handle a reasonable amount of torque.

[teflon]

I have only today stumble upon this magnificent mechanism. Version 1 is cute and uses some nice thinking. But version 2 is just out of this world. I imagine you have 7 bit (0/1) instructions on technic liftars, which are rotating on the threads. I think this is a step forwards from aeh' but even his is quite clever. I am rebuilding aeh' mechanism with driver in the back (have some problems with friction). I would appreciate if you could share some more pictures of version 2. I still don't get it but it's really incredible! Congrats!!

 

[aeh5040]

That's great!  An improvement on my version from 10 years ago!

[ord]

11 hours ago, teflon said:

I have only today stumble upon this magnificent mechanism. Version 1 is cute and uses some nice thinking. But version 2 is just out of this world. I imagine you have 7 bit (0/1) instructions on technic liftars, which are rotating on the threads. I think this is a step forwards from aeh' but even his is quite clever. I am rebuilding aeh' mechanism with driver in the back (have some problems with friction). I would appreciate if you could share some more pictures of version 2. I still don't get it but it's really incredible! Congrats!!

Thank you for the comments. That's right about the 7 bit instructions:

I don't have any more pictures but I created a Studio 2.0 file which you can download:

LEGO Technic - Mechanical Seven-Segment Tilt Display (v2).io

 

3 hours ago, aeh5040 said:

That's great!  An improvement on my version from 10 years ago!

Thanks, love your work!

[domleg]

Thank you so much for the Studio file, it's super helpful, finally I will have a chance to build this stunning creation.

Do you happen to have a Studio file for your amazing Cartesian Parallel Robot by any chance? I'm trying to rebuild it from the photos but I'm struggling a bit so far. I hope it's not too forward. Many thanks.

Edited March 26, 2021 by domleg

[teflon]

Thank you very much from my side I'll for sure gonna try to rebuilt this amazing thing.

@aeh5040: Thank you for your model also! It's quite a fun!!

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by teflon
addition

[ord]

On 3/26/2021 at 9:16 PM, domleg said:

Do you happen to have a Studio file for your amazing Cartesian Parallel Robot by any chance? I'm trying to rebuild it from the photos but I'm struggling a bit so far. I hope it's not too forward. Many thanks.

Sorry but I haven't modelled any of my other MOCs. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the other topic :)

[domleg]

Thank you, I'll try to do my best without bothering you!

[aeh5040]

I always planned to make a multi-digit counter or a clock with mine, but never made much progress.  Really the design itself was a bit too clunky.  As you say, the key is to make a carry mechnism that is both reliable and can handle the torque.  I think this would be very much worth pursuing, and starting with your version ought to give a much greater chance of success!

[ord]

I upgraded the seven-segment display (version 1) to display fourteen segments. It no longer shows the angle of the hub/s but can display 0-9, A-Z, a-z, and some symbols. Enjoy! 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by ord

[m00se]

Only needed to watch it 10 times before I understood how you managed to control 14 segments with 7 motors. It's really great, but I love the "elegance" of the Version 2, so I'm really looking forward to a Version 2 based 14 segment ;-)

[2GodBDGlory]

Very impressive! Those "Technic baseplate" parts look like they simplified the build a lot. It would be amazing to see a whole line of these spelling out words, but I guess that's beyond everyone's electronics budget...

[ord]

1 hour ago, m00se said:

It's really great, but I love the "elegance" of the Version 2, so I'm really looking forward to a Version 2 based 14 segment ;-)

Oh man, it would be tough to fit all 14 segments on the version 2 type, especially the angled segments. Here you can see that each segment requires ~4 studs of horizontal space (tile-liftarm-liftarm-liftarm-tile) with the current design:

 

1 hour ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

Very impressive! Those "Technic baseplate" parts look like they simplified the build a lot. It would be amazing to see a whole line of these spelling out words, but I guess that's beyond everyone's electronics budget... 

Thanks! They definitely did - they fitted the 14 'segments' perfectly. True true, surprisingly it also used up a large portion of my 6L axles - 90 to be precise.