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Sun clock 3d printed
3D printed digital sundial
Chris Fastie, August 7, 2016
Last year a clever guy named Julien Coyne posted his design for a digital sundial (Figure 1). As the sun moves across the sky, the digits representing 24-hour time are displayed in the shadow of the gnomon (the angled arm that traditional sundials have).
| Figure 1. The gnomon has intricate pathways for sunlight to pass through when the sun angle is just right. |
This was not the first digital sundial. The first one was a fiber optic device developed in 1984 by Steve Hines and patented in 1988 (Figure 2). In the following decade other designs were developed and patented in 1996 and 1997. These were simpler devices which directly blocked the sunlight except for the rays illuminating the digits in the time display. One of these is still offered for sale as an indoor (e.g., window mounted) time display (Figure 3). I have always wanted one of these, but they cost $129. 00, so I have been satisfied with an old fashioned gnomon stuck in the ground so it points at the north star and is surrounded by an arc of carefully placed rocks.
| Figure 2. Steve Hines patented this digital sundial in 1988. As the sun moves, light from an entrance slit enters fiber optic strands which guide the light to the proper plexiglas segment of a digit. |
| Figure 3. This beautifully made digital sundial was developed in the 1990s and is sold by one of the developers -- Daniel Scharstein of Middlebury College. |
The expense of the commercial digital sundial is due to the great precision required to manufacture it. Tiny masks block the sunlight except when the angle is just right, and these masks must be aligned perfectly.
Julien Coyne understood that a parametric CAD (computer aided design) program could create the intricate 3D model of the gnomon with a few lines of code repeated for each desired sun angle and for each “pixel” defining the projected digits.
The resulting object would be difficult to manufacture with traditional methods, but would be quite simple to make with a 3D printer. This sundial is one of the more elegant examples of a complex problem that has waited decades to be solved by 3D printing.
| Figure 4. A cross section of Coyne's gnomon through one of the 16 slots that allow sunlight to form a column of "pixels" which make up the digits. Only four of the six possible pixels are needed for this column of pixels. |
In October, 2015 Coyne posted an elaborate and entertaining video about his sundial and also made the design files freely available. The video has been watched 426,000 times and the printing files have been downloaded 80,000 times from Thingiverse. The other patents from the 1990s have both lapsed (the owners stopped making fee payments) and might not have covered Coyne’s approach anyway. Coyne sells his sundials on Etsy (it takes him 30 hours to print each one), but the primary impact of his work is the thousands of people who can print their own.
The great mystery of Coyne’s contribution is that the sundial video was his first real post at his Mojoptix website, and there has not been another one since. Maybe he’s just too busy printing gnomons.
I made a timelapse video of the display of one of the sundials I printed. I used a Canon PowerShot the first time but the automatic focus made the video jerky. So I used a Canon EOS M with manual focus and that worked better. I took a photo every six seconds using the intervalometer feature in the firmware enhancement Magic Lantern. The silent video below also has the CAD model being manipulated in the slicing program Simplify 3D.
Video has no audio.
Digital sundials don’t change the digits every minute, and to make the printing manageable, Coyne limited the time increment to 20 minutes. He also limited the operating span to the six hours between 10:00 and 16:00 (10 AM to 4 PM).
These were good decisions because the maze of light paths through his gnomon requires a structure about as intricate as home 3D printers can handle. When I printed mine I did not use the finer layer thickness that Coyne recommends and the printing took about half the time he reported. The projected time display of mine has some artifacts which might be due to my lower resolution printing.
The sundial needs a supporting base, and Coyne’s sundial is designed to screw onto the top of a jelly jar which you can fill with rocks or coins so the whole thing won’t tip over. Unfortunately, Coyne is French, and his design requires a French jelly jar. This was discouraging until I found a box of dusty jars in the garage and was astounded to see French label on a few of them. The fact that in a few minutes, without leaving the house, I was holding French jelly jars prevented me from complaining about life for at least a day and a half. As it happens, Bonne Maman is a common brand of imported jelly distributed in the US, and I was soon buying new French jars filled with really wonderful French jelly.
| A fine French jelly jar full of stones makes a sturdy base for the gnomon. Coins are even better. |
| The best imported jelly jars make the best sundial bases. |
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Digital Sundial - 3D Printed Sun Clock (Mojoptix Remake)
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Digital Sundial - 3D Printed Sun Clock (Mojoptix Remake)So here it is, our final version and remake of the Digital Sundial3D printed in high quality ABS, PLA, Wood Compound and any color you like (default color is Black, let us know if you want a different color) Displays time as any digital clock but has no battery Worldwide free shipping Includes all parts plus a 3M double tape to find the optimum position Less than 120 grams and 20 cm longInside a SundialOur secret is simple.
.. but not simple:Tiny little holes are designed and printed to let the sun go through only in a certain angle, allowing the Sundial to show the time in intervals of 20 minutes... not made for shiny moon nights.Sundials and KangaroosThere is a tiny subtlety if you want to use this sundial in the Southern hemisphere:Try to visualize an kangaroo in Australia. Just like everyone else, this 'roo has to orient the tip of its sundial toward the north pole. For him, that means having the tip of the sundial pointing toward the ground.... this doesn't seem very practical. Our hinge mechanism doesn't even allow to tilt the sundial below horizontal.The trick here is simply to build a subtly different magical black box (also called a gnomon) for kangaroos. This way, the 'roo can simply use this Southern-hemisphere sundial exactly the same way a cow or a penguin would use their Northern-hermisphere version the sundial, with just one difference: the 'roo will have to point the tip of his sundial toward the *South* Pole.
Please let us know your hemisphere!!!Fun fact about this sundialYou will most likely never see it in a supermarket or a department store. The swiss cheese inside the sundial is so intricate, that you can't realistically use injection molding, or some other mass-production method. 3D printing seems actually to be the only practical way to build this digital sundial ! We will ship the item from our closest and available 3D printer (USA, Spain or Netherlands) read more
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What the first 3D printed steel bridge looks like
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Photo: Mashable / YouTube
The world's first 3D printed steel bridge has been installed in Amsterdam. The project was ready three years ago, but the installation of the bridge was constantly delayed
What's happening
- On July 15, the world's first 3D printed steel bridge was opened in Amsterdam.
It connects the embankments of the Oudesijds Achterburgwal canal. The grand opening was attended by Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. - The structure weighs 6 tons and is 12 meters long.
- The bridge was printed by four robots by welding layers of stainless steel wire, it took them 4.5 tons of steel and six months to make a span of 12 meters. Then coastal supports and decorative elements were made.
- This project was developed by the laboratory of Joris Laarmann and ABB, Air Liquide, ArcelorMittal, Autodesk, AMS Institute and Lenovo, while the Amsterdam-based company MX3D was fabricating and installing the structure.
- More than ten sensors are built into the bridge, with the help of which it will be possible to monitor its condition and deformation. Thus, he will himself indicate the need for repair. The sensors will also count the number of pedestrians crossing the bridge each day.
- The structure was installed for two years as a replacement for the conventional bridge, which will be under reconstruction at that time.
- This bridge was first presented at Dutch Design Week Eindhoven 2018, where the project won the Dutch Design Award and the Audience Award. After that, the finished bridge lay in storage for another three years: first, in anticipation of the reconstruction of the canal, then due to the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown.
What does it mean
In recent years, there has been an active development of 3D printing technology in construction. The Netherlands seems to be on a roll with this trend, with the first fully 3D-printed residential building in the EU populated in the suburbs of Eindhoven in early May, followed by the opening of the world's first 3D-printed steel bridge.
We have already said that 3D printing is the future of construction and design. Compared to classic buildings, 3D printing has a number of undeniable advantages, such as short construction times, reduced economic and environmental costs, and ease of execution of complex shapes.
“This is not just about reducing and optimizing construction costs, but about giving architects and designers a new tool, a very cool new tool, with which they can rethink the design of their architecture and their projects,” notes Tim Görtjens, co-founder of MX3D, a bridge builder.
Mika Mos, member of the council of the municipality of Amsterdam, expressed the hope that this construction will also help the city attract quality new tourists:
“This could attract a new type of visitor, those more interested in architecture and design, which will change the perception of the area (famous for nightclubs and noisy parties. — RBC Trends ).”
Updated on 10/18/2022
Text
Ksenia Yanushkevich
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