Earth Clock Project with Arduino and 3D Printing

The Earth Clock Project is a fascinating DIY project that combines Arduino and 3D printing to create a unique time-telling device.

This project uses a 3D printed globe to display the 24 time zones, with each zone represented by a small LED light.

The Arduino board is used to control the LED lights, allowing you to set the time and watch the lights change accordingly.

By using a 3D printed globe, you can create a visually striking and interactive time-telling device that's both functional and educational.

A different take: Universal Time Clock

The Earth clock project is a great example of how Arduino and 3D printing can be used together to create a unique and functional timepiece. The Arduino board is used to control the clock's mechanics, while a 3D printed casing provides a durable and customizable housing.

One of the benefits of using Arduino in this project is its ability to be easily programmed and customized. In fact, the project's creators used a simple Arduino sketch to control the clock's movements and display the time.

The 3D printed casing is also a key component of the Earth clock, providing a sturdy and water-resistant enclosure for the Arduino board and other electronics.

The Arduino Code is where the magic happens, and it's where you get to see your project come to life. My motors are doing 2048 steps per revolution, which is crucial to understand when coding the movement.

One year is 365.25 days, and that's a lot of milliseconds - 31,557,600,000 to be exact. The motors need to be precise, so we need to calculate the steps per second.

The rotation around the sun is a bit more complex, but it's essential to get it right. The earth does more than 360°, it's actually 360+(360/365.25)°, which translates to 2054 steps.

To prevent the DayMotor's wires from getting coiled around the YearMotor axis, the YearMotor will reset itself after one turn by doing a full revolution CCW. This is a clever solution to a potential problem.

3D printing is a fantastic way to bring your ideas to life, and I'm excited to share my experience with you. I recently designed and built a 3D printed Earth Clock, also known as a Tellurion, which shows the Earth's exposure to the sun in real time.

The Tellurion is a unique clock that doesn't indicate time like a normal clock would, but instead shows where your location is compared to the night. It's a small gadget that can be placed on your desk.

The Earth's rotation is incredibly slow, which is why the model appears motionless even when the speed is high. The Earth is tilted by 23.4°, causing it to turn on two different axes at different speed rates: one full rotation in 1 year and one rotation every day.

Here's a breakdown of the materials used to print the Tellurion:

The Tellurion's design requires a combination of different materials, including Black PLA, Dark Grey PLA, and Copper PLA, each with varying layer heights.

The Earth Clock Model is a fun and interactive way to understand how our planet rotates on its axis. It's a simple yet effective tool that helps us grasp the concept of time and the movement of the Sun.

A standard Earth clock model marks out half of a circle to represent AM (daytime) and half to represent PM (night time). The Sun ball is placed at the Noon position, and the student playing Earth holds an artificial horizon cardboard to limit their view to 180 degrees.

The Earth student spins slowly to the left (anti-clockwise) to represent the Earth's daily rotation on its axis. As they turn, they'll see the Sun move slowly westward and finally disappear over the western horizon, indicating approximately 6 pm.

A day on Earth has 24 hours, which is a human invention based on observations of the Sun's movement. There are 86,400 seconds in a day, which is the actual rotation period of the Earth.

If the Earth spun four times faster, spinning on its axis every six hours instead of 24, things would be quite different for us. We'd experience much shorter days and nights, and our sense of time would be drastically altered.

Here's a quick comparison of the Earth's rotation periods: