Experimental Pendulum Clock


Posted on Feb 7, 2014

Using this design, you can construct an electromagnetically impulsed pendulum clock with a 1-second beat. On the prototype, the pendulum rod is 115cm long with a bob adjusted to make it beat every second. It is suspended on a short piece of mainspring from a watch, which is attached to a vertical backboard with a 6mm screw. The rod extends some 15


Experimental Pendulum Clock
Click here to download the full size of the above Circuit.

cm below the bob and is fitted with large washes at the lower end. Note that for a pendulum to beat in seconds, there must be 99. 4cm distance between the support and the centre of mass of the pendulum. Between the bob and the lower end is a 5mm wide white reflector facing back. Below the rod and 15mm to the left is the impulse solenoid, with a core but no actuator attached. The circuit comprises of four parts: (1) the sensor; (2) the counter and solenoid driver; (3) the clock driver; and (4) the clock. The sensor is built on its own small piece of strip board and is located on the centre line of the backboard behind the reflector. It utilises a Sharp IS471F infrared modulated detector (Farnell cat. 414-2860) to eliminate interference from external light sources. The infrared emitter (IRLED1) must be mounted near to the detector (IRDET1) but be masked from it. The emitter radiates a coded signal toward the reflector. As the pendulum passes the centre line it reflects the signal back to the detector, which then gives a negative-going output pulse on pin 2. This makes the surface-mount LED (LED1) flash once. It also sends a signal to the counter and clock driver circuits on the main circuit board. Pulses from the sensor are fed into IC1, a 4020 14-stage ripple counter. The counter`s output (pin 6) goes high every 128 counts (seconds). These long duration pulses are inverted by transistor Q1 and differentiated by the 10nF...




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