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Egocentric Clock

 the world revolves around it.
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The innards consist of a magnetic-bearinged, vacuum-encased flywheel upon which planar axis gimbal is mounted the pointing module. As the Earth rotates, the flywheel precesses and the casing remains pointed in the same non-sidereal direction while the base (on which is painted a 24 hour clock) revolves around it.

Pull the string every once-in-awhile to keep the flywheel spun up.

—FlyingToaster, Aug 30 2009

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       You'll need a pump to keep the chamber evacuated, so you might as well use the motor from that to top up the fly wheel.   

       But, surely, this is a calendar, not a clock?
—DrCurry, Aug 30 2009
   

       You could add some extra goodies to make it a calendar, but currently it's a 24hr clock (okay the backplate actually measures 24h3m56s, but the hand or the backplate is skipped at 00:00, 3m56s worth)   

       Note the outer gimbal needs to have 14'ish degrees of free movement with regards the mounting to allow for Earth's declination.   

       I'm sortof envisioning the "winding" mechanism to be magnetic: wound through the enclosure without being mechanically connected to the flywheel; a vacuum pump wouldn't be part of normal maintenance.   

       [Dub] thanks for sp. correction (1/365.2419 not 1/365.25, anno accidentally deleted), but I'll stick with 365.25 in case I want to use a gear mechanism of 1467 teeth for the skip; the difference is less than 2sec per year.   

       (apologies to [Jutta] for overflowing the dailies buffer by re-editing this anno a few hundred times) § x1
—FlyingToaster, Aug 30 2009
   

       When this idea had its original title did it have that tagline [FlyingToaster]?   

       can't remember what the original title was... "precessional clock" ? changed it a couple minutes after I posted it then I waited for hoouuurs for somebody to get the joke, before adding the summary punchline. Also added a line explaining how it works so it didn't look like a calendar.
—FlyingToaster, Aug 30 2009
   

       Ha! And I got it about five seconds before I opened the idea this time. Thank you.
—normzone, Aug 30 2009
   

       The first title was, Narcissistic clock, and I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't get it until seconds before I just asked.   

       [UB] Still wrapping my head around declination, etc. might be able to fit in a precession-correction and a calendar using a cam instead of gears.   

       I wonder why this isn't baked: scientists knew about orbits and (I assume) gyroscopes: 4 minutes a day isn't too bad and it's a consistent daily offset. [edit] never mind: due to friction they would have had to wind it up every 10 minutes in the mid-1800's.
—FlyingToaster, Aug 30 2009
   

       If this clock was truely egocentric then the flywheel would stay staunch and indignantly stationary and its casing/gimbals would revolve and precess.
—wjt, Aug 31 2009
   

       well, the casing is the egocentric part
—FlyingToaster, Sep 02 2009
   

       //You could fashion it in your own image. That might clear up some of the confusion.//   

       Egotistical eccentric escapement by an escaped eccentric egotist ?
—FlyingToaster, Sep 02 2009
   


 

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