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A wall clock

Design Project 4 weeks Medium build

Design a clock for a wall, three ways. A laser-cut analog clock on a quartz movement; a printed clock with electronics that tells the time in a way nobody has seen; or a clock that measures something other than the hours, like the tide, the moon, a season, or a deadline. Pick one route, or one route and a twist.

Three handmade wall clocks on a plywood wall, a layered laser-cut plywood analog dial, a 3D-printed clock with a ring of LEDs and a single hand, and a slow-moving dial marked with the phases of the moon.

Overview

A clock is the one object everyone in a room looks at, and almost nobody looks at properly. Two hands and twelve numbers is such a settled answer that it is easy to forget it is a design. It was chosen. It has a glance mode, where the angle of the hands tells you roughly where you are in the day, and a look mode, where the numbers give the minute. Any other design has to do both jobs, or decide to do only one on purpose.

This project makes a clock for a wall by one of three routes. Route one, a laser-cut analog clock on a quartz movement: the movement is a solved problem, so all the design is in the dial, the hands, the depth and the legibility. Route two, a printed clock with electronics that tells the time in a new way: one hand and a ring of light, a bar that fills, a word that changes, a flap that drops, a colour that shifts across the day. Route three, a clock that measures something other than the hours: the tide at a beach you know, the moon, the season, the light left in the day, the days to something, the time since something. It still has to be readable at a glance and true when you check.

Whatever the route, the clock hangs on a wall, runs on its own, and someone who has never seen it can read it in a few seconds after one explanation.

Skills needed

  • How a clock tells you the timeA clock is a display of a number that changes. Hands on a dial, a ring of light, a word, a colour, a position. Decide what a glance gives and what a closer look gives.
  • Quartz movements and handsShaft length versus dial thickness, hand sets and their weight limits, the hanging hook, the battery door. Cheap and reliable if the dial is within spec.
  • Layered laser-cut dialsStacked plywood and acrylic for depth, engraved and cut numerals, a bezel, a registration system so the layers align.
  • Keeping time electronicallyA real-time clock module keeps time through power loss; an ESP32 can set itself from the internet. A state machine drives what you show and when it changes.
  • Moving and lighting thingsStepper motors and gears for slow hands, servos for flags and flaps, addressable LEDs for rings and bars, a small display for a word or a number.
  • Enclosures and mountingA printed or laser-cut case that hides the movement or the electronics, hangs flat and level, and lets the battery or cable be reached without tools.
  • Reading other kinds of timeWhere tide tables, sunrise and sunset, moon phase and season data come from, and how to turn a date into a position on a dial.

Assessment

Criterion Developing Proficient Exemplary
Brief and concept A clock, no reason Route chosen for a person and a place; glance and look modes defined The display idea is new to the people who test it and they still read it
Legibility Readable only up close, or only with explanation Read correctly from 3 m by three people after one explanation Read correctly by someone with no explanation
CAD and files Not parametric; parts do not fit Parametric dial and case; cut or print files match the model Same file makes a bigger or smaller clock cleanly
Build Warped, misaligned, movement loose, wires visible Flat, aligned, movement or electronics fixed, back tidy Finish and depth look designed; the hanging is invisible and level
Timekeeping Drifts, stops, or wrong Within a minute a day; or tracks its subject against a reference Sets itself, or corrects itself, and shows when power was lost
Card and test None Test recorded; card on the back Test changed the design and the change is visible

Deliverables

  • A one-page brief: the route, who the clock is for, where it hangs, what a glance tells you and what a look tells you
  • Three concept sketches with the display idea drawn at the size it will be seen
  • The Fusion model with dial diameter, numeral size and case depth as parameters, plus cut or print files and, for electronics, a wiring diagram and the code in a repository
  • The finished clock, hung on a wall, running, keeping time to within a minute a day for the analog and electronic routes, or tracking its subject correctly for the abstract route
  • A legibility test from 3 m with three people, and the changes it caused
  • A card on the back: how to set it, how to change the battery or power it, what it measures

Materials

  • Quartz clock movement with a shaft long enough for the dial thickness, a set of hands, a AA battery
  • 3 mm and 6 mm plywood, 3 mm acrylic in clear and colours, wood glue, spray adhesive
  • PLA or PETG; M3 screws and heat-set inserts; a hanging keyhole or a sawtooth hanger
  • Arduino Nano or ESP32, DS3231 real-time clock module, a 28BYJ-48 stepper with driver or a small servo, WS2812 LED ring or strip, a small OLED or e-paper display, a USB supply
  • Sandpaper, oil or clear finish, vinyl for numerals if not engraved

Steps

Week 1: Concept

  1. Choose the route and the person. Where will it hang, who looks at it, what do they need from a glance and from a look.
  2. Look at twenty clocks, old and new, and write down for each what a glance gives and what a look gives. Notice the ones that fail at one of them.
  3. Sketch three concepts at the real size, on paper, and pin them on a wall. Stand 3 m away. Choose the one you can still read.
  4. For route 2 and 3, draw the state machine or the data flow: what the clock knows, what it shows, when it changes.
  5. Write the brief.

Week 2: Design

  1. Model the clock in Fusion. Parameters: outside diameter, dial thickness, numeral height, case depth, and the movement or board dimensions as reference bodies.
  2. Design the layers or the case. For layered dials, a registration pin pattern so every layer drops into place. For printed cases, a front and a back that screw together with the dial captured between them.
  3. Design the hanging: a keyhole or a hook pocket on the centreline above the centre of mass, and a bumper at the bottom so it hangs flat.
  4. For electronics, wire it on the bench and get the display working before there is a case. Set the RTC. Log a night and check drift.
  5. Export cut and print files. Nest the laser parts.

Week 3: Build

  1. Cut or print the parts. Sand every visible face before assembly. Finish the wood before the layers go together; it is impossible after.
  2. Assemble the layers on the registration pins with glue. Clamp flat. A dial with a bow will foul the hands.
  3. Fit the movement or the electronics. Check the hands clear the dial and each other through a full turn. For steppers, check the hand returns to twelve and the home sensor works.
  4. Fit the hanging hardware. Hang it. Check it is level with a level, not by eye.
  5. Set it against a reference. Photograph the time on the clock and on a phone together.

Week 4: Test and hand over

  1. Leave it running for a week. Check against the reference at the end and record the drift, or the tide or moon position against the table.
  2. Legibility test: three people, 3 m, one explanation, then ask them the time or the reading. Record what they said. Fix the dial if two of three got it wrong.
  3. Write the card for the back: what it measures, how to set it, how to change the battery or where the power comes from.
  4. Hang it where it belongs. Present it with the brief and the test.

Routes

Choose one. A twist from another route is welcome once the main route works.

Route 1: Laser-cut analog

A quartz movement, a hand set, and a dial you designed. The work is in legibility and depth. Layer plywood and acrylic so the numerals stand off the face, engrave a texture, cut a bezel, hide the movement in a pocket at the back. Type matters here: numerals or marks, their size at 3 m, their contrast against the face. Check the shaft length against the total dial thickness before anything is cut; the hands must clear every layer.

Variations: a 24-hour dial; a dial with no numerals that still reads; a clock with a second dial for another time zone on the same movement; a dial cut from a map of a place, with the hands over it.

Route 2: Printed clock with electronics

A microcontroller, a real-time clock module, and a display you invented. One hand driven by a stepper and a ring of LEDs for the minutes. A bar of light that fills from sunrise to sunset. A colour that moves through the day. A set of flaps or discs turned by servos. An e-paper panel that shows the time as a word. The state machine decides what changes when; the RTC keeps it honest through power cuts; an ESP32 can fetch the time from the network so it never needs setting.

Design the printed case for the electronics you have: a pocket for the board, a channel for the cable, a diffuser in front of the LEDs, a bearing for anything that rotates. Print the diffuser in white at one or two walls with no infill.

Route 3: Other kinds of time

A clock that measures something the wall clock ignores. Tide: a hand that goes around twice a lunar day, set to the tide table for one place. Moon: a disc that turns once in 29.5 days. Season: a hand that takes a year. Daylight: a bar that shows how much light is left today, from sunrise and sunset for your latitude. Deadline: days to something, counting down. Since: days from something, counting up. A slow clock can run on a quartz movement with the gears changed, or on a stepper that moves once an hour. The dial has to say what it measures without a label being the only way to know.

Get the data right. Tide tables and sunrise times come from published sources for a real place; the moon has a known period; a countdown has a real date. Check the clock against the reference on the day it goes up and again a week later.

Stretch options

  • A clock that shows two kinds of time at once, hours on one layer and daylight or tide on another, and still reads.
  • A family of three clocks from the same parametric file at three sizes.
  • A clock that knows when the power was lost and shows it until it is set.
  • A mechanical route: design the gear train that turns a quartz second-hand shaft into a hand that takes a day, a month or a year.