3D printed modular enclosure for flip clock

[flipoclock]

it's certainly not vintage, but it is way cool. I am going to invest in a 3D printer in the new year and this certainly seems appealing, especially for the clocks which are working 100% but are cracked, missing pieces, etcetera. You could design your own housing around it.

[Guest]

Nice find!! That's pretty cool. I have been looking at 3D printers, too, but I am going to wait until their resolution gets a little better for really small pieces.

[flipoclock]

that would be a supercool feature which is not there yet, but since that can be one year or 5 years and I see a real benefit of being able to print 3D items for other hobby subjets as well, most being larger items, I'm not going to wait for that for now.

[RetroFlip]

Have you guys looked at the resin based printers? They have come a long way and can produce very detailed parts compared to FDM style printers. The various resin types have a range of properties. I have two FDM printers and find them handy to have and may pick up one of the resin printers coming up.

Example of one with newer monochrome screen:

[flipoclock]

tbh, I had not done that, but have just made a start now.... It looks to be very interesting. The resin is a bit more expensive than the normal stuff?

This particular printer seems interesting, the build platform would be a bit small for me, but it might be a good printer to start. Who knows, we'll see in the new year

[cyb3rbyte]

I could see 3D printers being SUPER useful for creating gear replacements and other plastic parts that fail.

[flipoclock]

Yes, missing knobs and such. You probably won't get the shiny finish it was supposed to have, but if it has the correct shape and the right colour, what more could you wish for. This is the reason I want one, I have plenty of clocks which are mostly complete, they are just missing something which makes them unusable.

In time, smaller stuff such as gears would be fantastic for this is what mostly fails on the (Copal) motors. The motors themself hardly ever fail, I think I've seen only a handful of those in having handled hundreds of them. The only other main issue there is the space in which the shaft for the whirligig lies, when this wears out, forget about re-using that motor other than for parts. If we could find a workable solution for that

[Performa]

I love my 3D printer. Between that rig and styrene sheets, there isn't much you can't build. Problem is the things are huge- mine has been languishing in a storage unit for a couple years now and I sure do miss it.

I haven't checked, but I imagine various clock gears and parts might be up in Thingiverse already. If not, I'll see what I can do once I move out of this shoebox and have some space to set up equipment like that again.

[flipoclock]

Since moving to the new house, space is not really an issue anymore, budget is, at the moment, so is time, but that last thing is going to change in the coming months, I hope.