10 ms·
The Clock
- mikegerwitz 12y agoThis is an incredible piece of art. I can't express the positive emotions I feel for this.
- McUsr 12y agoI concur. The emotions the imagery invoked in me was a rare experience, technology hasn't invoked such feelings for years. So not sure if it is feeling associated with art, but still, it made me happy, and I do acknowledge the work as art.
- kitd 12y agoHaving built small discrete projects myself, the effort that has gone into linking all those parts without a board and ensuring that there are no touching wires makes my head hurt. Beautiful!
- TeMPOraL 12y agoWhat blows my mind is not even wiring this up - it's how he managed to debug this when he made a mistake (say, plugged something backwards or let the wires touch). On a project of this size and scale it is pretty much impossible not to make one at some point, no matter how careful you are.
- matthewmcg 12y agoRight, and to do it all while keeping a beautiful component layout...very impressive!
- blacksmith_tb 12y agoWithout knowing his process, I wonder if he doesn't possibly use clear nail polish or some other paint-on / spray-on coating as he goes, to prevent leads from shorting out.
- carapace 12y agoDebug it? How did he design it in the first place? I'd love to know more about that.
- lmm 12y agoThat part seems reasonably clear; an oscillator is a very simple circuit, most of the work is just going to be hooking it up to the displays correctly. You can design a circuit like this in a software simulator, put it together on a breadboard. Not saying that's what happened, but it doesn't seem like the hard part.
- xutopia 12y agoI felt like such a badass plugging in a LED to an Arduino and making it blink. This is a powerful piece of art to me because it is so complex and beautiful at the same time.
- xdissent 12y ago> The unit is powered by an external 12VDC adaptor, connected on the back of the frame. But later... > The clock reference, in other words the heart beat of this clock comes from the AC outlet. Maybe it's really a 12VAC adapter?
- henpa 12y agoYeah, I'm no electronics expert (far from it), but that part also confused me. Can someone explain?
- jonathonf 12y agoDepending on the supply requirements, he might use voltage ripple as a reference. With an unsmoothed rectified supply you get a nice "pulsed" input anyway: http://falstad.com/circuit/#%24+1+5.0E-6+1.8479586061009856+53+5.0+50%0Av+128+272+128+64+0+1+50.0+5.0+0.0+0.0+0.5%0Ad+224+128+288+64+1+0.805904783%0Ad+224+128+288+192+1+0.805904783%0Ad+288+192+352+128+1+0.805904783%0Ad+288+64+352+128+1+0.805904783%0Aw+128+64+288+64+0%0Aw+288+192+288+272+0%0Aw+288+272+128+272+0%0Aw+224+128+224+368+0%0Aw+224+368+464+368+0%0Aw+352+128+464+128+0%0Ag+224+368+224+400+0%0Ar+464+128+464+368+0+100.0%0AO+464+128+528+128+0%0Ao+13+64+0+34+5.0+9.765625E-5+0+-1%0A http://falstad.com/circuit/#%24+1+5.0E-6+1.8479586061009856+...
- smoyer 12y agoTrue but you'd expect that to be 120Hz rather than 60Hz.
- smoyer 12y agoVery inspiring ... I spent 20 years as an embedded systems engineering before switching solely to software. I've done a few contract projects but this makes me yearn for something that's simply artistic. Any ideas?
- FigBug 12y agoSomething with nixie tubes
- OnACoffeeBreak 12y agoAn LED cube? A cube can have similar aesthetics of bare wire, solder joints and LEDs, and will also let you use your embedded programming skills.
- Zikes 12y agoThese can be bought as kits now, too. http://www.tested.com/tech/487664-show-and-tell-hypnocube-led-cube/ http://www.tested.com/tech/487664-show-and-tell-hypnocube-le...
- Gracana 12y agoLissajous figures with a laser and some mirrors?
- morcheeba 12y agoI built a few cool watches...
- jgrahamc 12y agoHis other project, called The Tower, looks even more amazing. He replaced the simple diodes with LEDs: http://techno-logic-art.com/tower.htm http://techno-logic-art.com/tower.htm
- dan1234 12y agoSuch a shame there are no videos on the site. Photos don't seem to do it justice.
- pavel_lishin 12y agoI'd love to see a making-of timelapse.
- Technologicart 12y agoVideos are currently work in progress. Making a good video is difficult because of the light reflection. It's not easy to film something thru a glass.
- iamdanfox 12y agoIf you haven't already, definitely try a polarizing filter. I had to take some shots of some glass-framed artwork and it worked really well for those!
- rikkus 12y agoNext step: Use valve transistors. Bonus points for using them in place of the LEDs too!
- nsxwolf 12y agoDoes this guy write his own copy? He sounds pretty full of himself. He has a right to be after making these things, but still.
- acomjean 12y agoYou are getting modded down, but you are correct his description has a few sentences that are bad enough to be somewhat off-putting. Its bad form in the art world to call something you created a masterpiece or extraordinary (even if it is). I chalk this up to lack of experience. The work is beautiful, it would be better to have less hyperbole in the description .
- rcr 12y agoYeah. "The circuit is extremely complex", sure, to someone with no basic knowledge about circuits. It's a couple of frequency dividers and BCD drivers. Not to say I'm not impressed; I would never have the patience to see a project like this through.
- igravious 12y agoAgreed. It's more than a bit gauche (and certainly off-putting) to describe ones own work as a masterpiece.
- rootbear 12y agoThis is beautiful. I hope he posts videos. It reminds me of the old electronics of my childhood; radios and TV sets that had point-to-point wiring on terminal strips. No circuit boards! But they were never this beautiful.
- snake_plissken 12y agoThat is pretty sweet and completely mesmerizing! But, the thought of soldering all of those junctions together; what is the process for testing something like this as you build it? What if you make a mistake and don't catch it in time? Like you hook up a diode backwards... Serious craftsmanship.
- lamuerteflaca 12y agoThis is how you do it: You design it in a computer. Test it. And then just follow the diagram.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y agoI think it's more likely the design is modular - build your BCD counter out of smaller modules, breaking it down to gates. You can repeat the 3D design of each functional unit. Still awesome though. Especially that central ring, which is just there for the look of the thing. I'd be a little worried there are no decoupling caps anywhere, so it could be a touch glitchy - although at 12V you'd have good natural noise immunity, so I guess that's not a problem in practice.
- rtkwe 12y agoThe artist probably built it in segments which they could test individually then assembled it together, probably testing sub assemblies too. It'd be crazy to try to build this all at once. And since most of this boils down to a series of pulse dividers it's relatively simple to test them in pieces.
- sbierwagen 12y agoKABtronics makes something similar as a kit you can solder together yourself. http://www.transistorclock.com/index.html http://www.transistorclock.com/index.html http://www.transistorclock.com/linked/onwall_l.jpg http://www.transistorclock.com/linked/onwall_l.jpg
- hga 12y agoThat strikes me as mostly tedious without looking hardly as beautiful. I'm told I have above average soldering skills, but the beauty of the (very large number of) joints in the OP work of art floors me.
- stegosaurus 12y agoIncredible! I actually had the idea of building an LED clock (using standard LEDs as pixels, rather than 7-segment display) a while back without using IC's. This has pretty much destroyed my idea. Is that really the minimum necessary? Holy cow.
- iamdanfox 12y agoOne of the most pleasing things for me is that his gallery was navigable using two finger swipes on my macbook!
- scoj 12y agoThat is quite amazing. I love his signature: http://techno-logic-art.com/images1/gislain_benoit.jpg http://techno-logic-art.com/images1/gislain_benoit.jpg
- spot 12y agosimilar technique but more useful: http://jasonkrugman.com/ http://jasonkrugman.com/ in particular: http://www.jasonkrugman.com/organicElectric/ http://www.jasonkrugman.com/organicElectric/
- dyeje 12y agoI would love to see a video of using the hand crafted magnet to adjust the time of the clock.
- mcguire 12y agoThat is a beautiful piece of work. But I'm afraid the description lost me at: "Since glass covers the complete artwork, there was no way adjust the time using buttons which was simply solved by hovering an elegant handcrafted piece of magnet over specific locations over the glass frame. Electro- magnetic micro switches inside the frame responds to the magnet and adjust the time. The "Time adjusting magnet" has a chrome handle tip and its magnet side is covered with velvet." "elegant handcrafted piece of magnet"?
- cfontes 12y agoI think it's pretty ok to understand what they are saying.
- iblaine 12y agoVery impressive. http://techno-logic-art.com/tower.htmQD http://techno-logic-art.com/tower.htmQD has been built and "The Pyramid" is coming next.
- spydum 12y agowow, that urgently needs a video! (FYI remove the QD from your link..)
- Technologicart 12y agoVideos are currently work in progress. Making a good video is difficult because of the light reflection. It's not easy to film something thru a glass.
- iblaine 12y agocorrect link: http://techno-logic-art.com/tower.htm http://techno-logic-art.com/tower.htm <i blame my fat fingers>
- mapster 12y agoHaving been an electronics hobbyist myself I have great awe for his projects. Are there examples of software that are analogous to 'the clock' in their power to inspire awe?
- ljk 12y agoIs there a tool that one can use to bend the leads in perfect straight line and circles?
- techaddict009 12y agoHope to see his Kickstarter campaign soon for the same.
- stegosaurus 12y agoDoes anyone have any recommendations of basic circuit emulation software that could be used to tinker with ideas like this without destroying actual hardware? In the UK schools used to have software called 'crocodile clips' which could show things like the current flowing through each junction, but it's too basic for larger projects like this.
- mctx 12y agoWe used PSpice at uni: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSpice http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSpice
- userbinator 12y agoThis is known as diode-transistor logic, and was quite common in early computers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode%E2%80%93transistor_logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode%E2%80%93transistor_logic The amazing and artistic thing about this is not the circuitry itself - it's just a series of dividing counters and a shift register (to drive the seconds ring) - but the layout. The images are also right at the edge of being high-resolution enough to tempt me to reverse-engineer a schematic...
- mod 12y agoI wish there were a picture to show scale. I did see the dimensions but something for comparison would be nice.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- stinos 12y agoYears ago I created something in this style (well, sort of: contained no actual logic, just lit leds and stored a small amount of energy so it took minutes to fade them out, and doesn't even come close to the achievements of this guy) as a gift and I was quite proud of it: http://i.imgur.com/vYs619y.jpg http://i.imgur.com/vYs619y.jpg Now I feel really small though :P
- reedlaw 12y agoThe dual digit displays are probably simply encased LEDs but it would be nice if there was a way to expose the inside of those too. Aesthetically they seem out of place.
- Technologicart 12y agoHey! I am Gislain Benoit the maker of the clock and the tower. (Proof sorry cellphone pic) http://i.gyazo.com/960a386840d6c471a76bf04b47cd09ae.jpg http://i.gyazo.com/960a386840d6c471a76bf04b47cd09ae.jpg If you have any questions, please post them as reply.