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DIY Moon Phase Dial


Gina

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Hour and minute hands adjusted so as not to catch on each other and to place the magnets just clear of the dial so the the Hall sensors work.

Another photo.  The light strip sticking up from the top left corner of the case was originally along the top edge - now cut back.  It will have some more LED strip added to it and taken across the top just above the moon drive pauls with an opaque strip in front to stop it shining outwards.

 Case with Front LED String 18.jpg

Edited by Gina
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Another problem has reared its ugly head - the clock stops for no apparent reason :eek:  All I can think of is that somehow there's more friction somewhere.  So (sometime) I'll have to take it all apart again and see.  If necessary I could increase the motor power by changing to a lower microstepping figure (and code to match).  ATM I have the wiring set up to give full step or 16x microstepping - full step would give two steps a second and no doubt a noticible "tick" but the start-stop operation could cause a problem.  Easy to test though and no need to disassemble.

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Hmmm. RC4 uploaded but not working. It gets to the M109 in the gcode then sits waiting for the hotend to heat forever even though it is at the correct temp already. Tested printing with RC3 and all looks ok. I'm going through the RC4 config again to check I haven't missed something. Some of the options have been renamed/removed and also moved around in the file.

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Tried changing to full-step mode with the required 4 steps per second in pairs separated by just under 250ms but it still stops after a while and also makes a very loud "tick" more like "clack"!!  Oh well, worth trying, back to plan A - strip it all down again :(

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2 hours ago, tekkydave said:

Hmmm. RC4 uploaded but not working. It gets to the M109 in the gcode then sits waiting for the hotend to heat forever even though it is at the correct temp already. Tested printing with RC3 and all looks ok. I'm going through the RC4 config again to check I haven't missed something. Some of the options have been renamed/removed and also moved around in the file.

Oops - I wondered where this post had gone. Looks like I posted it in your thread, Gina. Sorry :D

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Cleared a bit of blue card that might have been impeding motion, check that gear train was free and put it al back together again.

Having a problem with the wire for the Hall sensors catching so will need to sort that out.  In fact these wires are such a problem with going between clock face and circuit board that I need to rethink the whole Hall sensor system.  Having magnets on the ends of the hands and hall sensors built into the clock face seemed a good idea but wiring the Hall sensors has turned out to be a problem.

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As I suspected one of the Hall sensor wires had come off the circuit board.  The wires had got caught up in the moon dial gears and I need to fix the wires yet allow assembly of the clock.  Maybe a small 4 way connector is the answer attached to the box top and plug on a short cable from the Hall sensors.  One small 4 way cable going across the top of the clock face won't be too intrusive.   The Hall sensors have 3 connections - Vcc, Gnd, data and the Vcc and Gnd can be common making 4 connections to the two sensors.

I can run fine plain wires from the hour sensor on the bottom of the 2 digit of the 12 up to the dial ring where the minute sensor is then these can be connected to a 4 way cable going from the ring to the edge of the clock face acrylic sheet.  ATM the wires to the Hall sensors are a mess where they were glued onto the clock face and came adrift.

Hall Sensor Wiring 01.jpg

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It's on the back and doesn't show much.  A drop of acetone will dissolve the glue but it needs care to keep it off the acrylic as much as possible as it makes the surface matt.  I have found the shine can be partly brought back with toothpaste though.  OTOH the matt areas don't show much from the front. 

Here's a magnified photo.

Hall Sensor Wiring 02.jpg

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Been cleaning up the Hall sensor areas.  Removed wiring and Hall sensors.  Wire broken off on one of them so I'll have to replace that one.  Fortunately I have stock and they're cheap enough.  In many ways I would like to put the sensors inside rather than on the dial but that's not easy.

Couple of photos - back and front.  The 12 will be touched up in black later.

Hall Sensor Wiring 03.jpgHall Sensor Wiring 04.jpg

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Using a new Hall sensor I have now glued the hour sensor in place and run wires from the connections up to the dial rings and through tiny holes to the outside.  I've decided to make a feature of the cable to the sensors, having it on the front of the clock face going straight up middle top.

Here'a a couple of photos of the new wiring for the hour sensor.

Hall Sensor Wiring 05.jpgHall Sensor Wiring 06.jpg

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I've now wired up the Hall sensors to a 4 way multicolour cable strip and covered the first inch or so with black shrink wrap sleeving.   Connections as follows  :-

  1. Vcc to Yellow
  2. Gnd to Brown
  3. Hour data to Red
  4. Minute data to Orange

Hall Sensor Wiring 07.jpgHall Sensor Wiring 08.jpgHall Sensor Wiring 09.jpg

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A quick photo with the clock face and gearing placed up against the box to give an overall view of the Hall sensor cable.  It won't be visible over the top of the box when finished.

Hall Sensor Wiring 10.jpg

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Clock all back together and working :)  Except for the moon dial - broke a lug off the cam follower while "messing about".  Tried gluing it but it came off again - I'll probably print a new one (with wider cam follower lugs perhaps).  The new Hall sensor setup is working fine :)

I haven't yet added code for BST so the clock is running on GMT/UTC and an hour slow.  It's also running about 2m fast so I need to find where that's coming from. 

I also have a problem with the USB and Serial Monitor.  It's showing garbage but the COM port settings match as shown by Device Manager so I don't know why that is.  Rebooted PC etc. - no joy - it was working.  Doesn't stop the clock working but can't use it for debugging.

The seconds wheel hub is still not right and the axle is running eccentrically.  I don't think it's actually causing any problem but doesn't look good.

Edited by Gina
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