Mechanical-Digital Steel Ball Clock

Re:Mechanical-Digital Steel Ball Clock by mdorazio on Monday October 12, 2020 @01:18AM (#24751606)

This is a cool project and an interesting design, but after reading the description I'm still not clear on how it actually works. How is it choosing which balls get retained each rotation when the top part is basically all fixed magnets?

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Re:Mechanical-Digital Steel Ball Clock by andreareina on Monday October 12, 2020 @01:25AM (#24751641)

In the second video you can see that the magnets in the top part move towards and away from the faceplate to release, retain the balls respectively.

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Re:Mechanical-Digital Steel Ball Clock by iguy on Monday October 12, 2020 @03:25AM (#24752188)

I was surprised by this, as I assumed from the first pictures that it was going to be electromagnets. Seems like a lot of moving parts to do it this way.

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Re:Mechanical-Digital Steel Ball Clock by andreareina on Monday October 12, 2020 @06:34AM (#24753064)

Permanent magnets on servos won't lose their grip on the balls when power goes away.

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Re:Mechanical-Digital Steel Ball Clock by andreareina on Monday October 12, 2020 @01:40PM (#24757058)

*retain, release respectively.

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