Orbichron, Novelty Clock from the 1980's Future

[Performa]

I've always liked clocks, especially the unusual sort (thus my attraction to flip clocks), though the sheer volume of strange clocks out there is downright staggering. As I suspect many of you like unusual clocks too, here's a weird one I've seen crop up a few times over the last couple years, the Orbichron.

Built strictly as a novelty "futuristic" time piece in the early 1980's, the Orbichron uses LED lights that illuminate in timed sequence around the dial to mimic the "motion" of a traditional analog clock. They're kinda cool! Also, hard to come by and crazy priced.



The manufacturer, Orbichronics is "maybe" still in business. Their website is still up, but hasn't been updated since 2004, so it's hard to say if there will ever be more of these things or not.

[Performa]

I have a pet peeve about not being able to find the voltages for vintage electronics out there, so here's a look at the Orbichronics Orbichron power supply from that eBay listing, which reads out as 6 Volts AC.

[Performa]

As an aside, I looked at the possibility of "building" something like this myself with an arduino to run the lights. It seems like it would be relatively straightforward to build something like this given enough time to program it and to wire all the light circuits together. That's the trick though, I've got too many projects to work on right now as it is.

Were I to build one, I think I'd deviate from the plain circle and use a dodecahedron (12-sided shape, I had to look up what it's called) so that each hour has a defined point with a set number of lights between them. I think this would simplify not only using it at a glance, but also constructing it as building 12 straight segments of wired lights is much easier than building a big circle of them, at least as far as math goes. A simple graphic of the shape to illustrate it's "points" is posted below, in the event someone out there is more ambitious than I am at the moment.

[RetroFlip]

Cool, one I have come across for Arduino that sounds similar is:

https://learn.adafruit.com/neopixel-60-ring-clock/

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2874

So many projects so little time

[flipoclock]

That Orbichron is way cool! Out of my budget range though, but indeed, who knows, just keep looking. One more clock to be on the hunt for

[Performa]

Cool, one I have come across for Arduino that sounds similar is:

https://learn.adafruit.com/neopixel-60-ring-clock/

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2874

So many projects so little time

Woah, they got something prefabricated? Hmm... that takes a lot of the busywork out of that. Thank you!

[flipoclock]

it might the easy way, but where's the fun in that!?

[Performa]

it might the easy way, but where's the fun in that!?

Programming the arduino to run everything! Especially if it can do funky things with all the lights- we might have something cool here yet!

[flipoclock]

Fair enough, I had not clicked the link, I had assumed it was already programmed, but you could of course also reprogram it to your own needs/wishes.

[flipoclock]

There's actually a website still online/live and it seems that these clocks were still sold well into this millennium. They are not for sale anymore so it seems, too bad (not for my wallet though )

[Performa]

There's actually a website still online/live and it seems that these clocks were still sold well into this millennium. They are not for sale anymore so it seems, too bad (not for my wallet though )

It's strange that a site that old and "abandoned" is still being run by someone- servers are cheap these days, but they're still not free. Weird to think it's still up and running if there's nothing left of the business anymore.

[Performa]

I suppose I would be doing the world a disservice if I didn't drop in some pictures of the derelict Orbichronics website, complete with waving American flag GIF!

[Performa]

A late-model Orbichron has cropped up on eBay (HERE) but what was most interesting to me was a seller photo of the instruction manual. Have a look!