Ken-Tech T-507 Mechanical Digital Clock

[RetroFlip]

Was gifted one of these recently. Another interesting mechanical clock that hides as a larger LED display. Each
digit segment is it's own neon bulb, a synchronous motor drives a cylinder that touches contacts that turn on and off each segment. No am/pm indicator. So far mine has all the bulbs working and is keeping time. Has anyone seen this particular mechanism in other clocks?
This video on youtube shows what it looks like on the inside:

[davidm]

Very interesting clock, ahead of it's time?

I bet that's a collectors item.

[flipoclock]

Lumitime copy? The Lumitime clocks work in the exact same way I recently discovered when I got my hands on a broken one which I needed to open up anyway....

[Mackey]

That's an interesting clock. I keep finding myself getting into these "other-than-flip-clock" digital clocks. It's intriguing how they came up with ways to digitally display the time. What cracks me up is that in advertisements of many early digital clocks, they refer to them as "space-age" or "Computer Age" clocks in spite of there being absolutely no computing at all! Just electromechanical geewizery. Thanks for posting this RetroFlip

[Mackey]

Looking into this further it seems that these were out around 1976 and they were actually big into promoting these as "computer-type" numerals.



Newspaper clippings:

Ken-Tech Digital Clocks Wed, Aug 4, 1976 – Page 25 · The Decatur Daily Review (Decatur, Illinois) · Newspapers.com

Ken-Tech Model T-507 digital clock Wed, Apr 13, 1977 – Page 150 · Southern Illinoisan (Carbondale, Illinois) · Newspapers.com

Ken-Tech Dital Alarm Model T-507 Tue, Apr 26, 1977 – Page 16 · Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, New Mexico) · Newspapers.com

[RetroFlip]

Lumitime copy? The Lumitime clocks work in the exact same way I recently discovered when I got my hands on a broken one which I needed to open up anyway....

Which model was it? I'm still learning about lumitime and there seems to be some information that they did not universally use the same mechanism over time. Some are shutter based, which I see called a occlusion mechanism.

Someone opening a lumitime with shutters:

And after you mentioned it, here's a C11 with similar lighting of segments:

Looking into this further it seems that these were out around 1976 and they were actually big into promoting these as "computer-type" numerals.

Cool to see the ads, 1976 seems the sweet spot for these sort of clocks, fun to hunt down as they often sold simply as digital alarm clocks.

My favorite so far is the Digi-tel telechron, if you see the segments sub divided, that's a sign it could be one of these, they are in some 76' ge alarm clocks. Two bulbs backlight the digits and I'd like to try replacing at least one of the clocks with color changeable leds.

[RetroFlip]

Performa I opened up the 507 to read the markings on the clock,

kendale technology corp
NO-0-JEWELS
PATENTS 10
3759030
KTC-125 JAPAN
in red ink: 36090719


I turned up this patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US...orp)+(3759030)


Searching 'digital clock' in the time period we are talking about seems to produce quite patents relating to the subject.

[Performa]

Performa I opened up the 507 to read the markings on the clock,

kendale technology corp
NO-0-JEWELS
PATENTS 10
3759030
KTC-125 JAPAN
in red ink: 36090719


I turned up this patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US...orp)+(3759030)


Searching 'digital clock' in the time period we are talking about seems to produce quite patents relating to the subject.

This is awesome information! Thank you!