i prototyped this using two windshield motors (powerful worm gears for cheap) and two slip rings to transfer power / position data between the arms
it looks awesome but I need to work on making it easier to produce by figuring out a better way to sense where the connecting arm is (hall effect?), and do more work to account for backlash in the relatively inexpensive / tolerant worm drives
i built one that rotates about the hour hand and another the rotates about the minute hand to try both ways out; it's pretty cool to see the whole thing swing around once an hour but probably not something you want in a home...
It would be nice if the "epicycle clock" words at the bottom would link to an explanation on Wikipedia or something (or display a popup).
Also, with the dark mode extension the white background is black, but all the black numbers/line are still black (not white) which makes it only show the minutes and seconds hands. And it looks quite confusing.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 21.7 ms ] threadit looks awesome but I need to work on making it easier to produce by figuring out a better way to sense where the connecting arm is (hall effect?), and do more work to account for backlash in the relatively inexpensive / tolerant worm drives
i built one that rotates about the hour hand and another the rotates about the minute hand to try both ways out; it's pretty cool to see the whole thing swing around once an hour but probably not something you want in a home...
Also, with the dark mode extension the white background is black, but all the black numbers/line are still black (not white) which makes it only show the minutes and seconds hands. And it looks quite confusing.
Still nice though
Also a super analogy to show new programmers how complexity increases if you introduce unnecessary dependencies.