LUMITIME - A Digital Clock With NO Electronics!!! 

Without looking, my understanding is that it's definitely _electrical_ but to be "electronic" a device needs to have some kind of microprocessor/integrated circuit/etc... so that electronic is essentially synonymous with "digital".

@@llYossarian No, electronic does not require integration or a computer. Electronic would mean that an electronic component was actively controlling it. Yes LEDs and Neon tubes are 'electronic' but they are not performing any logic or driving anything. The control or logic is all physical switches cams and a motor.

@@wayland7150 I didn't say the clock was electronic and otherwise your definition that _"Electronic means an electronic component was actively controlling it"_ seems to completely agree with my definition and is totally circular _(like mine was)_ and only explains that _'electronics are electronic because they have electronics'_ -- ...and I don't mean to criticize but I was just hoping you'd clarify.

@@llYossarian To clarify I'm saying the clock is not electronic even though the lamps seem to be neons. However I can't figure out how those logic wheels create the numbers so I'm wondering if there is not some additional logic going on with the neons and resistors. A simple logic wheel would require 7 fingers to operate 7 segments. You can count from 0 to 15 with 4 fingers but how do you drive the segments? I suspect there is some kind of electronic logic happening even if it's very simple. Maybe someone has the answer?

@@wayland7150 You could call the wheals mechanical logic. But that is not what makes something electronic. The difference between electrical and electronic is that electronics involve non-metallic conductors such as semiconductors or gasses, ect. Interestingly, something not noted in this video is that clocks like this keep time through 60Hz with a synchronous motor. So you are relying on the power company to regulate that 60Hz so your clock does not run slow or fast. This relies heavily on electronics. This clock likely would not have kept time well in the 20s because there was no standard at that time for mains frequency until much later in the 20th century.

🤣🤣

This comment wins todays interwebnets 👏👏👏

And I love you so...

When an eel bites your eye, pulls it out till you cry, that's a Moray

Lol altogether now.

Its mesmerising.

As seen on Mr. Spock's work station.

I bet Mr Fancy Pants had one !

I was so excited to see how that worked, absolutely gorgeous effect, Im in love!

That's my favorite part

i remember seeing a toy like that my cousin had

I suggest you check out how microcontrollers are made. It too is fascinating and take brain to do it. With microcontroller, you gain the ability to easily mass produce. And that means the price can be lower. Lower price mean everyone include poor family can purchase it without hurting their family budget much.

Tomy were the kings of mechanical hand held games. Randi Rain has done repairs of them, and its absolutely fascinating how they're made. Look at her channel

I had a game called "blip" it was marketed as a "digital" game but was entirely mechanical inside. Only used a single red bulb mounted to a moving lever that would ping-pong back and forth if you would press the correct button. One day curiosity got the better of me and I opened it up Only to discover there was nothing digital going on. It was all cogs and wheels

@@daphneblake7889 Randi repaired that very game (she's done absolutely loads of Tomy game repairs)

it's nice to see quality comments for a change, i must be on the good side of YT :)

Sunday, April 17, 2022 CE 15:50 EST I mean there were ticket clocks, which ACTUALLY used no electronics Though, I guess mechanical (mainspring powered) 7 segment displays might have glowed in the dark better with exposure to sunlight

Hey, 8-bit Guy ❤️

@@SilverBullet93GT I'm just surprised nobody's told him to keep his angle grinder away from it ;)

You mean - when you invent something and then realize it was already invented 50 years ago? Familiar feeling ;-) Cheers! S

Its also worth remembering that prior to dedicated digital clock chips a logic based clock would have been pretty expensive.

"The gearing in this is akin to the gearing inside the old oven clocks/timers you might find on appliances of that era." Never trying taking one of those apart. I had an oven with a 24hour, drum style mechanical digital clock which I took apart to oil. It took me most of the day to get it back together as it was easy to to line things up in a way that caused it to jam when it went from 19:59 to 20:00 etc

I'm a mechanical engineer. I am impressed with this design but we learn about electronics as well in school. Mechanical engineering encompasses electronics, mechanics, dynamics thermodynamics and fluids among other things

Pretty sure the stove my parents had in the 1980s/90s was a flip "digital" electro mechanical number wheel one. My Grandparents also had a clock like this with flipping panels to make the next number.

It's pretty much the same as an electrically powered mechanical clock, except the "hands" are electrical contacts for the different lights rather than physical hands.

A joy forever.

Does not deteriorate.

@@FranLab winner chicken dinner

@@FranLab Bobby Dazzler?

It will just automatically travel though the existing winding when you screw it back in. By tighting it to hard then you will grind the screw head and break the britel plastic screw mounts.

@@pyeltd.5457 If you're screwing into a material that is harder than the screw, yes, it will travel through the existing threads. If you're screwing into a material that is softer than the screw, you stand a risk of creating a new thread.

I've repaired a lot of vacuum cleaners that had ruined screw posts. I had to make new ones with plasti-welding those super cheap worthless drywall anchors in that they give you free with picture frames, or filling up the old screw post to the top with molten plastic and then tapping in a new thread manually.

Most mains-powered clocks work the same way.

The AC line frequency is gradually becoming less stable though - historically it was very hard to pull because you were basically fighting the aggregate rotational inertia of a very large number of extremely massive generators and turbines, but as more and more generation is becoming decentralized and increasingly large number of sources are using inverters which constantly adjust to the network phase - this is good for power delivery, but not so good for synchronization. You get a similar effect when using HVDC for long-lines transmission - the line losses are reduced, but the amount of network phase skew between the two ends can be significantly increased. So far, it's not reached the point where it's a serious problem but it's definitely on the radar as something to watch.

@Jamie Whitehorn. I agree. As you may know, the power utility companies actually count AC cycles to average exactly 5,184,000 cycles over a 24 hour period. They slightly speed up or slow down the generators throughout the day to "make cycles" - this is so AC Synchronous Motors used in clocks almost never lose time, even after years if power is not interrupted.

I wonder how this worked in countries that use 50Hz on their grids?

@@Darknecros7Any company that makes a 60Hz motor also makes a 50Hz version in the same form factor (just different windings/armature inside to handle 240VAC), and a different gear set to get 1 RPM from a different motor RPM.

Yeah, those japanese clocks emitted a sort of "hum" background noise, with the frequency of the AC grid, I suppose.

Same here but not always successfully!

I loved how they always included extra screws for the next time you needed to put together.

@@Hellefleur That seems to be the case with everything I've ever taken apart - there's always more screws than places to screw them when putting them together again, lol

I have one of those iconic Sun valley model 1030 digital flip clocks. And a classic Numechron rotating drum digital clock, too. Need to get me one of these electro mechanical displays

This one is just beautiful.....who needs that 'new' silicon-based technology?? :)

Perhaps that solder on the plastic is a remnant of an early wave-solder process??

This is such a gorgeous clock! I’m not surprised that it still works after all this time!😍

Seeing how complex this clock is and how much goes into making it work, I'm not surprised that they switched to an LED display after they became cheap enough to put into consumer electronics. It's a very cool thing and as a retro enthusiast I'll be keeping an eye out for one on my yard sale hunts.

... and the 'run' (AC) motor in the hammond organ was originally used/designed for ... a clock :) ... relying on grid frequency those clocks are very precise and the organs are always in tune. many modern home appliances like kitchen/oven/alarm clocks still rely on grid frequency instead of some quartz circuit, as i found out just some years ago. (actually there was an issue in the european grid some years ago which caused the frequency to be slightly above exact 50 Hz for several months, which resulted in many home clocks being noticably too fast after some weeks...)

The tone wheel generator of the Hammond organ is pre twentieth century. It goes back to Thaddeus Cahill's Tellaharmonium, patented in 1897. It was also the basis of telephone tone and ring generators.

@@Jenairaslebol27merde I grew up with Telechron clocks. So accurate you only had to set them if the power went out. They even had a warning flag to let you know if there had been a power failure. GE eventually bought the company. Phonographs and tape recorders also used synchronous motors. Now everything runs on quartz servo motors.

@@Jenairaslebol27merde Early Hammond clocks were not exactly accurate due to line (grid) frequency not being regulated. Power companies were not interconnected like they are today. As the story goes, Laurens Hammond solved the problem by giving a Hammond clock to every power company president. As the complaints started coming in that the clocks were not accurate, Mr. Hammond Told the power companies ' there is nothing wrong with my clock. The problem is with your power. Regulate your frequency, and my clock will run accurately.' Incidentally, when the power system was finally regulated, the regulation did not say "60 Hertz". it said the polarity must change 5194000 times per day. This allowed the power generators a bit of leeway for generator slow down during heavy loads. The company could "make up" any lost changes in polarity, at low load times, keeping the clocks accurate in a 24 hr period.

@@dougbrowning82 Correct, Hammond simply miniaturized the Tone Wheel Generator, and made it practical.

I was going to comment on that but decided to see if anyone else caught it first and found your comment. It has to be synchronous, a universal motor couldn’t keep time and its brushes would wear out.

presumably it would keep bad time in places with 50hz - would there be a mechanical way to switch?

Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering how it would be able to keep decent time.

Yep no idea where the hell she got "universal" from lol... I thought at first it was just she misspoke... Then she repeated herself... Sigh

@@jeffcapeshop Gearing.

In the late 1970s, LEDs were still expensive; it wasn't at all unusual to see neon or filament lamps dolled-up to look like a bit LEDs, especially on cheap equipment. LEDs also required a DC supply and series resistor; which in its turn altered design requirements, as traditionally, neon indicators usually came as a panel-mount whole package including a resistor to run from the mains directly, and filament lamps would have been run on AC straight from the mains transformer.

@@bluerizlagirl Fran's tear-downs have been an eye-opener, and makes me realize I was probably seeing a lot of these without realizing they were bulbs.

@@TechStuff365 Yeah, I remember somewhat similar yet even more complicated and fascinating. I had a Tomy-branded "car driving simulator" toy, which had no electronics, just a switch, lamp, and battery box. The main part was the "display" which showed the road by rolling a picture film drum behind, lit from inside, and it had even attached a mechanism to make engine-mimicing noise (IIRC the film drum was used as an acoustically tuned cavity, with a rubber diapraghm on its end hit by some lever moved by a toothing on the edge of the drum). However the most fascinating thing on it was the separate-from-screen instrument cluster which had "7-segment" digital speedometer which showed the fictional speed depending on the speed lever (which IIRC mimiced a gear selector by aesthetic design, and by the way can't recall how was the rolling speed control implemented, but IIRC mechanically), and also a horizontal "digital segmented-bar" RPM meter, controlled by the same lever, as well as a "vertical-segment-stack"-layouted fuel gauge, which slowly decremented while driving. All these "digital" instruments were implemented by surprisigly complicated mechanics, moving colored plates behind the segment holes. Well how I know all this and what is so sad about it? I tore it down and disposed it of as a teenager... Btw, with all that digital-mimicing hype back then, it is ironic that nowadays we have "analog" clock displays on digital screens, and even stepper motor driven "mechanical pointer" instrument clusters to show digitally fed speed, rpm, fuel level etc. information.

@@bluerizlagirl I actually have a flip clock that has red numbers that are made to imitate the look of LED numbers. I'm guessing it was made for someone who wanted a 'real' LED clock but couldn't afford one because they were still pricey. It's funny to me because a 'real' flip clock would probably cost way more to make than an LED clock these days.

@@TheSimoc i think i remember this toy from being wrong about it at a family friends house or something, "obviously" needing batteries haha

It looks just like a Zenith Avanti from the mid-seventies!

A 1970s widescreen TV would use a wider CRT tube, and almost the same electronics, only with a more powerful horizontal deflection circuit. 4:3 was a compromise to work better with naturally round parts like lenses and CRTs. Widescreen movies used a special projector lens to take a 4:3 image from the film and stretch it out on the silver screen at the other end of the theater, just like amplifying the horizontal deflection signal in a TV.

Probably maybe if they had flat screen technology somehow. Probably a what could have been punk thing like how some people think of steam punk or diesel punk or cyber punk.

uuh, a mechanical screen tv. glorious 144p :)

It still looks amazing even in 2022.

Testimony to quality design that it made an impression on you at age 7 ❤️

Thats the part that blows my mind, this thing was completely designed on pen and paper, manually calculating every measurement. We simply dont see this level of engineering anymore in consumer goods.

@@MisterMosfet Back then companies would have a drawing office with dozens of draftsmen stood at large drawing boards designing all the individual parts. Fun fact. The first ICs were designed without CAD. In fact the "Place and Route" of the Ferranti ULAs used in the Sinclair Spectrum etc was done manually on paper. The design was then digitized using a huge digitizing tablet so it could be simulated. We had that system at work in the 1980s. I have since learnt it cost £99999 when you could buy a house for £20000.

Infinitely more complex things, to this, were designed "pre CAD".

They didn't do it with only four tracks. There are more contacts on the back.

There is an earlier version of this display that has a different looking action... I'd like to get one, but for some reason the price of these clocks has very recently went absolutely through the roof. Can't say why....

holy crap it's big clive o-o

Reminds me of a lot of the pin tables and juke boxes I worked on in the 1980s

@@FranLab It must be the "Fran Effect", similar to the well known "Techmoan Effect".

Yes I was thinking mid 70's not early 70's

Yup, I had the model with the alarm at around the same age as you - I think I got it for Christmas because I sure don't remember picking out the model or buying it. It was a very cool clock and I liked it a lot. It's strange, however, (and sad) that I got such a negative reaction when I saw that rotating starburst in Fran's video. It brought me right back to being a sad kid sitting in a my dark bedroom trying to fall asleep while watching that starburst turn. My parents loved me and gave me a nice home, but they battled addiction and mental illness so my childhood wasn't always pleasant.

You must have really liked it back in the day, adjusted for inflation it would have cost around $100. That's a lot of money for a 15 year old.

@@chiroquacker2580 I know my parents never could have afforded the equivalent of $100 for a simple alarm clock for me, so maybe they were significantly discounted off the MSRP in store.

Actually, most clocks rely on the 60Hz line frequency to keep time. That's how any electric clock with a synchronous motor keeps time (most just have hands instead of light up digits). Radio/alarm clocks from the 70s and 80s with the LED or VFD displays and more modern ones with LCD displays do too. Usually one of the pins on the chip that runs the clock is connected to the step down transformer with just a diode (no filtering) and it divides that pulse rate by 60 to get seconds.

@@raymondcourtois67 Obviously I still have much to learn. Thanks Raymond for taking the time to explain this; honestly, I never did complete that ( Core Electronics ) course, and so I kinda - sorta know a little bit about it, but that's all. But I'm still very fascinated by electronics and by the way, Thanks Fran for continuing to make educational and entertaining content~!

I have to windy clock one a week.

Actually most of the world doesn't have 60Hz so I wonder why anyone would say most clocks rely on it.

@@nicolasjochem1814 True, I should have said most clocks in the US.. Clocks that run on 50Hz power work the same, just the gear ratio (or divider circuit for digital clocks) is different to get one revolution of the second hand per minute.

I have a Lumitone radio as well as a Centech clock that works the same. I bought the Lumitone thinking that the Lumitime display was the same as a shutter clock, which I also have, mainly because of that fascinating transition from one digit to the next. Lumitime does it faster and with fewer transitions than a shutter clock. Shutter clocks backlight with a single bulb or a pair of bulbs and use cams to move physical shutters that block light on each segment. Talk about mechanical!

That's what i expected this one to be at the beginning of the video

Until recently there were loads of petrol pumps doing something similar. The manufacturers thought LEDs would be too dim and LCDs would fail the first time there was a frost.

Yeah my clock radio was one, still somewhat common going into the 80s. So noisy in some cases.

I swear, those engineers were half wizards.

Yeah, that seconds display really dredged up a half forgetten memory. I'm sure I saw one of these somewhere when I was a kid. Maybe it was at an Aunt's house or something.

Fran mentioned that the clock had a "universal motor". Actually, universal motors run on both AC and DC (brush motors). This motor is a synchronous motor, and Kriss is correct about the power utility company keeping the 60 Hz synced for use as a time reference.

IIRC, in the US, the AC power was spec'd the be accurate to 3 seconds (not a typo.) This means it could be very inaccurate over the short term and incredibly accurate over the long term. Measuring a year to +/-3 seconds was easy using AC power. Common crystal oscillators were nowhere near that accurate.

The Japanese made great electronics back in the 1970s.

The bulbs are neon indicator lamps

@@samuelfellows6923 yes, I saw the video.

I'm thinking that it could be designed the same way today, but would cost $200 and nobody would buy one since they can get an LED clock for $10.

Just think of the automatic transmission of a car. The first ones were introduced in the 1930s, the same time RCA was selling radios with wired arm chair remote controls.

It would have been very expensive and the contrast ratio between clear and dark was very poor then.

Yes, and the neon bulbs are also happier with AC.

wow, havnt thought about SL in about 15 yrs, I used to make lamps with various modes, rented land and built a shop to sell them along with a friend that made clothes, my part time job was an "interactive" model in a store that sold adult animations. what a crazy place SL was.

@@flipclone Yeah, I learned scripting pretty well and have quite a few items still in the marketplace, and recently setup in world again, but I've already kind of lost interest, and I've been open a few months, and haven't made a sale. Seems people don't shop like the used to...lol

Yeah looks like wave solder remnants

Check Technology Connections video on an electro mech jukebox. Crazy stuff!

When you think about it though, micro-controllers are merely replicating in electronics what you needed to do on a much bigger scale mechanically. So yeah, with enough space and a ton of points of failure, you probably could replicate anything mechanically.

From a software engineer, this level of craftsmanship for "just" a clock is art.

Very accurate 60hz sync.

A salute to all the electronic and mechanical devices we, as kids, were going to "fix"...and turned into scrap. LoL!

@@aaronm9478 but we learned so much by breaking things

This. It has to be a synchronous motor, or otherwise there would have to be some other kind of very precision speed governor, which is hard to imagine with any cost efficiency and nothing shown hints of such.

I have an old robotic coin bank from Radio Shack that lifts the coin and inserts it into the slot. It's all electro-mechanical using these sorts of techniques.

Description is in the text on the video when I show the mechanism.

@@WaffleStaffel pause around 19:19, you can see the second set of wipers on the back side. Also, if you pause on the circuit board and trace all the connections, logically, there has to be a second set of wipers on the bottom.