Since this post I have been looking for a clock with the Telechron Digi-Tel mechanism because I was curious how this worked. It took a bit of patience, but then this "Falster RD-2000" came along. Not the best looking clock, but it has the mechanism and I got it at a nice price.
It is made in Korea but clearly aimed at the German market. Bit unclear how this clock was used. It does not have any feet at the bottom but instead it has four screws on the back with which it could be attached to something. The discolouring suggests it has been possibly been built into some casing or cupboard.
At first it looks like nothing was wrong with the clock but upon inspection I found a broken part inside. This was just the excuse I needed to take it apart and satisfy my curiosity
I ended up taking it further apart than necessary but, well, I just wanted to know every detail (a decision I regretted when I had to put it all back together again 
).
It is an amazing piece of engineering! In short it has a mask on the front with 7 segment cutouts for the digits, that is lit from two light bulbs at the back and in between there are horizontal and vertical moving shutters that open and close the segments. These shutters are driven from three cam wheels. Each cam wheel has a track on both sides, one driving the horizontal shutter and one for the vertical shutter. On the cam wheel for the hours the side of the wheel also has a function: it opens and closes the shutter for '1' in front of the 10, 11 and 12 hours.
All this is propelled by a Telechron S motor via some complicated levers. Interestingly some levers use gravity rather than springs to keep their positions, so it will only operate correctly when upright.
The changing of the numbers is fascinating to watch but also confusing. When changing from 4 to 5 it in between briefly shows 2, 0 and 8. Here is a video showing it in action:
It is made in Korea but clearly aimed at the German market. Bit unclear how this clock was used. It does not have any feet at the bottom but instead it has four screws on the back with which it could be attached to something. The discolouring suggests it has been possibly been built into some casing or cupboard.
At first it looks like nothing was wrong with the clock but upon inspection I found a broken part inside. This was just the excuse I needed to take it apart and satisfy my curiosity
I ended up taking it further apart than necessary but, well, I just wanted to know every detail (a decision I regretted when I had to put it all back together again ).It is an amazing piece of engineering! In short it has a mask on the front with 7 segment cutouts for the digits, that is lit from two light bulbs at the back and in between there are horizontal and vertical moving shutters that open and close the segments. These shutters are driven from three cam wheels. Each cam wheel has a track on both sides, one driving the horizontal shutter and one for the vertical shutter. On the cam wheel for the hours the side of the wheel also has a function: it opens and closes the shutter for '1' in front of the 10, 11 and 12 hours.
All this is propelled by a Telechron S motor via some complicated levers. Interestingly some levers use gravity rather than springs to keep their positions, so it will only operate correctly when upright.
The changing of the numbers is fascinating to watch but also confusing. When changing from 4 to 5 it in between briefly shows 2, 0 and 8. Here is a video showing it in action:
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