Large Clock. Copper gears with black frame. Artillery Genius printer.

Changed the face and hands. Much better appearance. I found 1.5mm and 3mm stainless steel rods for the pins. Found a seller on eBay that has steel shot for the weight shells. Compacts better than BB's.

Printed with Prusa I3 MK3S. Pla Arianeplast. 2 cents € coin used. 10 G-code used for all the parts. ± 70 hours of printing.

The clock works great and I am impressed by its precision. Going down the stairs and being greeted by its ticking is great source of satisfaction. I could not get it to work with anything less than 8kg and omitting the use of a pulley. Run time gets reduced to 3 days, but it is still good enough for me. Until I find a more elegant 8kg weight, I am using old UPS batteries, which make the clock, technically, battery powered. :) I noticed an occasional slip in the minute hand clutch mechanism, which was rectified using a rubber washer (I used the seal from a bearing) between gear 4 and gear 6.

Beautiful clock! I made two of them. One for my dad. He is an antique clock repair man and he is very impressed! And of course I had to make one for myself!

Overture plain black PLA and CC3D copper silk PLA. This was so much easier to get running than the other clocks I have found around. It really is a joy to hear it ticking away behind me in my office.

Thanks for all the work you put in to this design! I could hardly believe it when I hung it up for the first time this afternoon: as soon as I let go of the weight and tapped the pendulum it started ticking on its own, and hasn't stopped yet. There was only a slight adjustment to the pallet nuts to get the beat right, and it's been wonderful!

A nice design, and it works well! I have more details about my build at http://moosteria.blogspot.com/2021/08/steve-petersons-3d-printed-clock.html

This is my second build of this clock.

Hi Steve, Well, you have created a monster. I found a copy of "The Modern Clock" on Amazon for about $17. I don't think I'll be giving you any clock design competition anytime soon, but at least I'll be learning something new. You might have seen that I posted a few photos of my second build of the Easy Build clock. At the moment I am having trouble keeping it running. I can't seem to get good performance out of the pendulum. It has to be the ball bearings. They seemed OK, but what else can it be? I can't even get 10 minutes of swing time. I have two ceramic bearings on order, but they are on a slow boat from China (well, they will probably come by air, but I still won't see them for weeks). If these work out, I'll get a pair for my first build. That clock has simply stopped for no apparent reason every 5-7 days. Again, it's probably the pendulum. In both clocks, the drive trains seem to run very well and will keep going on momentum for many seconds after the weight is removed. I'll let you know how the ceramic bearings work out. Thanks, Paul

So, I have only just started reading "The Modern Clock" and I have already learned just how incredibly sensitive pendulums are to their environment, particularly with regard to temperature and air density. It might be overkill, but I made a shroud to add some aerodynamics to the puck-shaped bob. I tested this on the clock build that has been giving me some trouble (still waiting for those ceramic bearings). It might be coincidence, but I do seem to get longer run times with the shroud than without it. This clock usually only runs for a few hours, but it ran over 24 hours during one test of the shroud. Anyway, here are some photos and a link to a video of the clock in operation. https://youtu.be/Dv7zBexsGe8

I almost finished it (version 15 days, picture). - I made all the gears in ABS. They printed perfect, only one of the pieces (gear9_inserts) had to be reprinted due to a small warp. I printed it with enclosure (about 33 ºC) and heated bed (90 ºC). If anyone were to ask me, I would recommend ABS over PLA. I like how I can sand it down to get a really smooth surface. The body, pendulum and hands in PLA. - I understood too late the advice to fix elephant's foot (I use Cura and the parameter for this fix has a name I didn't recognize). So I got some elephant feet. I removed it manually (X-Acto, sandpaper) from the pallet and scape but didn't do any or just a few touches on the other gears. - I didn't use screws (I don't like them) but metal inserts and bolts. In Spain we use metric screws, so I choose M4 screws except for the gear7c_clicks where I used M3. - Gear4b_18 and spacer_4a must have a snug fit to the rod (epoxy and shaft collar are recommended alternatives). Instead, I made a small hole in the wall of these pieces (2 mm drill) and screwed in an M2.5 bolt which perfectly fixed the pieces to the rod. It's a bit difficult to make the hole in the center of the wall of spacer_4a (only 5 mm thick) to keep the bolt head right in the middle (not sticking out on either side of the spacer), so I ended up redesigning the spacer with the screw hole already prepared (picture). - I designed a U-piece that attaches to the wall and supports the bottom of the clock (picture). This piece allows the clock to be vertically aligned by means of two opposite bolts. - I still have to print the weight shell. The current design seems too bulky to me. I found a local business that sells lead bars and I plan to fill a shell with 10x10mm square bars. Lead rods are cheaper than BB's and I expect they will give a higher density. I'll use BB's if needed to fill in the gaps between the body of the square lead rods and the shell walls. I want to thank @StevePeterson for this beautiful, smart and precise design. By the way, you must have a really twisted brain to be able to create something like that using the Imperial system of units.

My clock in 7-day configuration, running with a 4.5lbs weight.

15 days model Gears: Smartfil ABS, silver. Other: Snapmaker PLA black, GST3D PLA yellow and white. Weight shell = 3.1 Kg Mods: - Bigger Pulley (55 cm) with flatter channel. - Larger Nylon cord (1 mm diameter). - Weight Shell redesigned for larger pulley. - Nylon line end-fixings designed for easy assembly and disassembly (no knots to untie). - Precise watch angle adjustment system to optimize anchor and escapement play. - Indicator and scale to monitor clock angle. - Gear and spacer that need to be integral with the axle, fixed with a screw. No need to try different sizes until you get a precise fit. Removable and adjustable as many times as you want. -The weight is achieved mainly with 10x10X150 lead bars. BBs to adjust. - Most screws replaced with M3/M4 bolts and heat-set threaded inserts. Building and watching this clock work is a unique experience. Do not miss it!

10 days option works perfectly

32 Day Clock build, 10 day gears. Galaxy Black / Silver Running great with 9.75 lbs.

I printed this clock a couple of months ago, and I really enjoyed the build. I love the clock, but it turned into a bit of a journey getting it to run reliably. I went through your troubleshooting steps, added dry Tellin to the great faces (I sprayed it into a container and used a small paint brush to put it where I needed it. It seemed that, no matter what I did, there was too much friction in the drive train. What seems to have finally solved the problem was sanding the arbor for the winding key completely smooth, and using some metal polish on that arbor and the arbor for the hour hand. Now, with the 10 day gearing, it will free fall with about 8 oz and it's been running reliably for a few days with 8 lbs of weight and a nice, solid tick. I was trying for the 32 day run time, and it will run free with a little over 3 lbs, but with the escapement it stops in less than an hour with 14 lbs and I'm not willing to add more than that. The 10 day is fine. Anyway, thanks for publishing such a great design! I'm considering building a 2nd one using wood PLA. Any thoughts on that? I think it would be a great aesthetic, but I wonder if it will add too much friction.

Hi, I printed and assembled the clock, but it doesn't run...i saw your video on Youtube saying to REPRINT gears 3 and 4, but I don't know how to find them. Do i must "buy" them again? P.S. I sprayed all the wheels with silicone, but it doesn't help. Thank you, isidor

Works like a charm right of the printer, no tinkering was needed, excellent desing (best I have seen yet)!

What a fun project! This is a great design, very well crafted. I did the 15-day option with a three-inch shell and two extensions, putting me at about 9 lbs. I modified the shell pulley to 55mm diameter and separated/modified the pendulum tip to make it wholly round and metallic in color. Half-round looked a little cheap to me. Also, I used stainless steel sealed bearings. I didn't bother to degrease them, I just put a 3mm rod in a drill and spun them to break them in at high speed. Also, I ran the clock without the pallet connected for three cycles to break in the clock. I found I was getting huge friction between gears 1 and three, stopping the clock after 15 min or so before I broke it in by spinning them at high speed. If they touch it still causes problems, but they seem to settle about half a mm apart. I may eventually remake them with points where they connect instead of flat surfaces for as little friction as possible but for now if they don't touch everything works great. At first, I didn't understand "wire" and used craft wire for the 3/16th arbors. It was not stiff enough. Thankfully I had a package of titanium welding electrodes amazon sent me by mistake for some unknown reason, which are exactly 1.6mm and worked perfectly. I used brass rods for the 3mm arbors. Finally, I embossed the pendulum with a yin/yang dragon relief for aesthetics and raised the face numbers for a more striking effect with the metallic PLA over the PETG (which was its own process, trying not to have lighter printing artifacts show over the dark while overlaying two different materials). I only wish they had a metallic PETG because it is so much more accurate with my printer, and stronger too.

Absolutely fantastic clock! Thank you for sharing this.

Love it!

Excellent clock! Now it's running with 7-Day runtime, it's been running for many weeks now with no problem. It took me a long time to actually get the clock going but in the end I succeeded. Now every time I wind the clock I also tap the escapement gear (just in case), so that it's closer to the wall. I found out that if I do that, the clock won't stop ticking. After all, it is a really beautiful clock, and thanks again to Steve Peterson for designing the clock, and also his advices when I couldn't get my clock going :)

Great design! Had only one problem with a warped gear. Reprinted bad gear and it ran like a champ! Used silk gold, copper, and silver for the gears, weight and pendulum bob. Tan for the frame. This is truly an easy build. Printed on an Elegoo Neptune 3 pro. This is a great design and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to print their first clock. The instructions are precise and simple to follow. Thanks Steve for a great build!