Found this space age oddity at an antique store. Not a flip clock, but certainly interesting. I had no idea what it was or how it worked, so for the $20 price I thought I'd have fun exploring it's innerds.
It has side knobs to set the time and alarm, and a rear alarm lever. So it had all indications of a mechanical movement. When I first plugged it in and turned the setting knob, some digit segments lit, some not and others flickered on and off. It's marked Ken-Tech Model T-610. I found nothing online about it, though I see a previous post on a similar Ken-Tech T-507.
Opening it up found three rotating drums, with embedded conducting bars. Riding on top of the drums are metal fingers, that when in contact with a drum's conducting bar, completes the circuit for individual digit segment bulbs. The drums' conducting bars are there or not to properly light up the seven segment digit to represent a number. Kind of like a music box.
The left drum does a full rotation every 10 minutes to sequence through the cycle for the single minute digit. The middle drum covers the 0-5 ten minute digit, but it has 12 conductor bar rows and takes two hours for a full rotation. The right drum covers the hour digits and rotates every 12 hours. Note the drums don't rotate continuously, they advance in 1/10 or 1/12 rotation increments, stopping on a conductor row, and staying there utill an advance to the next position - left drum advances on the minute, middle drum every 10 minutes and the right drum on the hour.
I found the contact bars and fingers a little corroded, particularly on the single minute drum. I gave the contacts a good spraying of cleaner and put it back together to run a while. It's been a few days and the segments are lighting up consistently with still a little flickering now and then. The more it runs the better it gets as the contact surfaces scrape away the crud.
If anyone has seen one of these or knows anything on this clock, I'd love the hear about it.
It has side knobs to set the time and alarm, and a rear alarm lever. So it had all indications of a mechanical movement. When I first plugged it in and turned the setting knob, some digit segments lit, some not and others flickered on and off. It's marked Ken-Tech Model T-610. I found nothing online about it, though I see a previous post on a similar Ken-Tech T-507.
Opening it up found three rotating drums, with embedded conducting bars. Riding on top of the drums are metal fingers, that when in contact with a drum's conducting bar, completes the circuit for individual digit segment bulbs. The drums' conducting bars are there or not to properly light up the seven segment digit to represent a number. Kind of like a music box.
The left drum does a full rotation every 10 minutes to sequence through the cycle for the single minute digit. The middle drum covers the 0-5 ten minute digit, but it has 12 conductor bar rows and takes two hours for a full rotation. The right drum covers the hour digits and rotates every 12 hours. Note the drums don't rotate continuously, they advance in 1/10 or 1/12 rotation increments, stopping on a conductor row, and staying there utill an advance to the next position - left drum advances on the minute, middle drum every 10 minutes and the right drum on the hour.
I found the contact bars and fingers a little corroded, particularly on the single minute drum. I gave the contacts a good spraying of cleaner and put it back together to run a while. It's been a few days and the segments are lighting up consistently with still a little flickering now and then. The more it runs the better it gets as the contact surfaces scrape away the crud.
If anyone has seen one of these or knows anything on this clock, I'd love the hear about it.
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