Propeller Clock

Propeller Clock
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This is one of the most neat projects to build using a PIC. The design of the clock is mainly a clone of
Bob Blick's propeller clock, along with a few modifications of mine. I used a PIC16F84A, basically an
improved version of the 16F84 and the 16C84. I'd have to admit that the programming end of things was
more difficult than building the clock itself; I originally built over five homemade programmers with
various software available over the internet, all of which failed to program the PIC. I finally gave up and
bought a kit programmer, which was not very good either, but after fiddling with the software, I
managed to program a PIC successfully.

One major modification of Bob Blick's design is obtaining power. The original design took the power off
the spinning armature of a DC motor and converted it to striaght DC for the clock. I have tried this
modification on two motors and the results were not very satisfactory; either it resulted the motor rattling
a little or it did not work efficiently. I also learned that the original design had a .047F (FARAD)
capacitor for memory, and I did not have a such capacitor on hand, so I decided to make some
modifications. Instead, I put a rubber plate above an unmodified DC motor for insulation, and a washer
on top (the washer is isolated from the metal case of the motor). The metal case of the motor is
connected to ground, and the washer was connected to 5V. The spinning board obtains the 5V through a
sliding contact to the washer, and ground through the spinning center of the motor that is also part of the
grounded body. This modification worked very well, but there was the problem of providing a reference
point for the clock (the original design obtains the reference point from one of the terminals on the
armature). I put a small notch on the outer end of the washer and put a pick-up wire on the spinning
board to pick up the pulse from the notch. This worked, but I was not satisfied by the display
occassionally wobbling because the flexible wire does not always keep its position after it hits the notch,
and also this caused a soft clicking sound that was irritating. Therefore, I replaced the wire with an
infrared sensor, and installed an infrared LED on the side of the motor. One advantage from this overall
modification is the fact you can provide variable speeds on the motor, since the power to the motor is
completely independent of the power to the clock, also you could turn off the motor and still set the
clock, which omitted the need of a .047F memory capacitor. Below is a schematic of my clock:

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Propeller Clock

The program for the PIC can be found at Bob Blick's website, the filename is MCLOCK8.HEX and is
located on the Propeller Clock page in the Technical Information and Projects section. Pictures:

Front of clock

Rear of clock

Clock during operation

I decided to rebuild the original propeller clock using higher intensity LEDs. However, the original
propeller clock had some problems with the sliding contact, which was eaten away due to friction over
time. Also the board was built a year before the clock was actually up and running (I admit I couldn't
figure out how to program the PIC in a long time!), so there were several modifications on the wiring,

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Propeller Clock

which resulted in some brittle connections and intermittent operation. Bottom line, I needed to build a
new one. I reused some parts from the orignal clock, especially the PIC and also used a revised code
somewhere on the internet to add the seconds to the display.

I found a nice motor in my junk pile that probably was used in an old laserdisc player if I remember
correctly. I decided to build this clock using the classic Bob Blick style, obtaining power from the
armature of the motor. I was lucky to pull this off with this motor, since all other previous motors failed
to run smoothly when I was building the original clock. I used a ball bearing from a VCR head to hold
the top end of the motor in place, plus some other parts from cassette tape players. Since this clock does
not obtain power independently from the motor like the original, a .047F capacitor was absolutely
necessary to keep the PIC powered up so you can set the time. However, this was not easy for me to
obtain, so I replaced it with a miniature 3V lithium watch battery, which works nicely. I also made a few
modifications to the original schematic on Bob Blick's website; I added a zener to regulate the voltage
from the armature of the motor to 5V for the PIC, so the motor could run at higher speeds with the clock
having only 5V. Below are some pictures.

New clock
Click Picture for Larger Image

Clock during operation

I built another propeller clock using smaller ultra-bright green LEDs. I planned on making a clock using
ultra-bright 5mm blue LEDs, but after I built the experimental clock using these LEDs the digits did not
come out as expected. I thought that these brighter blue LEDs might result in sharper looking digits as
opposed to my second one with the weaker "ultra-bright" red LEDs, but the digits appeared poorly out of
focus. Disappointed by the results, I bought some 3mm ultra-bright green LEDs and changed out the blue
LEDs with these. The results were much better; the digits came out much sharper and crisp.

The circuit is pretty much identical except for a few modifications. The second propeller clock used Bob

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Propeller Clock

Blick's method of obtaining power from the motor's armature. I didn't want to bother with aligning the
ball bearing on the top of the motor so the clock runs smoothly, which was not very easy. I started to
revisit my original plan in the first clock by supplying the spinning board constant power to eliminate the
need of a memory capacitor or battery. Instead of a washer on top of the motor with a spring contact, I
simply pulled out the armature out of another motor and put it on the shaft of an unmodified motor.
Also, the brushes from the gutted motor was placed on top of the unmodified motor. For most DC
motors, the shaft is not long enough for the armature and the plastic piece that connects the spinning
board to the shaft. I used a cassette tape motor, which typically have long shafts because of the gear
assembly for running tapes forward and reverse. Some cassette player motors runs the mechanisms via a
belt, but some have a motor that drives the tapes directly via the gear assembly. The shaft from motors
like these are about three-quarters of an inch, which is plenty for the entire armature and the connecting
piece for the board. Below is a picture of how the brushes and armature are assembled on the unmodified
cassette tape motor:

The circuit is basically the same as the second propeller clock with simple modifications; the power for
the clock is fed through the armature so the clock has power while the motor is not running. There is no
need for the memory capacitor or battery. Below is the schematic diagram:

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Propeller Clock

I hid the motor, the armature and brushes on the top inside some cedar wood. I drilled out the hole in a
piece of cedar wood for the motor, then cut the outside about a half-inch thick using a band saw. I used a
piece of black (painted) aluminum as the base for the clock. There is a very small red switch at the base
that turns the motor on and off to set and run the time respectively. Below are some pictures (click on the
thumbnails for a larger image):

Notice the red switch at the bottom of the base

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Propeller Clock

Clock during operation

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