The wacky Wake-O-Matic

[Johan de Jong]

My new bedside companion: the TobiSonic Wake-O-Matic!

An odd looking radio-alarm clock with a lamp on a telescopic pole.
The head holding the clock can swivel, but only for about 10 degrees, so I can’t really see why they bothered. The lamp pole can extend and turn in all directions. The lamp can only be switched on and off manually (it is not a wake-up-light). The manufacturer is the Ross Electronics Corporation from Chicago (according to radiomuseum.org).







The clock needed the usual restoration work:

• lubricated the motor to get that going again,
• replaced the blackened neon light,
• cleaned all the switches,
• cosmetic cleanup.

The head is pretty full. All the wires run through a tube to the base of the clock.




The base is also crowded.




Working on it is a bit like working on a French car from the 70's: to get the motor out you need to get the clock mechanism out, but the screws are at the bottom of the head, so you need to detach the head, but the bolt holding the head is behind the transformer, so you need to get that out first, but then the wires are too short, so you need to desolder them first, etc...

On the inside of the bottom of the case there is a diagram of the electronics in tiny print.

[flipoclock]

That's a nice and interesting find, I don't think I have seen one of these in 220v/50hz! That would indeed make a nice bedside-companion. It's going on my wishlist now

I have seen more clocks where they put an unreadable picture of the schematics at the bottom of it, you wonder why, it's near enough useless.

[Guest]

WOW, that is in outstanding condition! I love that 70s blocky look a lot! Great find!

[Johan de Jong]

Thanks! I had seen this clock mentioned in a discussion on this forum before and was quite surprised to find it in the Netherlands with 220/50. And in a good condition indeed. Bit dirty and with a stuck motor, but complete including all the knobs, and no serious issues. It's not always like that with clocks of this age :-)

[Performa]

Interesting, I've seen many sell on eBay, but never seen the "guts" of one until now. Thanks for sharing!

[frodisman]

I have one I pretty decent working condition. Any idea what kind of bulb is used? Definitely need to pick one up.

[Johan de Jong]

I have one I pretty decent working condition. Any idea what kind of bulb is used? Definitely need to pick one up.

Looks to me like a standard car light bulb. It is labeled "tungsram1057 12V 21W 2DXP21W1P".

[cyb3rbyte]

I wonder if it uses a similar setup to a tensor lamp, where it's driving a halogen lamp using DC versus a regular bulb at AC. I think some lamp / clock combos used those.

Either way, great find and I love the 24hr tiles on it as well.