> Have been trying quite some time now to find a suitable
> motor for the propella clock, with no luck.   Have bought
> and scraped several old Sharp VCR's, no luck there
> either.  Would be willing to buy one at any reasonable
> price, in fact I might buy more than one.
> The clock is a very intriguing project and would like
> very much to build it.  ANY  suggestion you might
> have would much appreciated.

Hi Charles,

You're probably better off without the Sharp motor. When the first one
died I thought it was a fluke, but the second one lasted about the same
time - six months.

I think it's because the clock is basically a capacitive load, and it eats
the motor brushes up if they aren't heavy-duty.

The old 5.25 inch floppy drive motors seem to work forever, but they are
impossible to find now, too.

However, I have heard from people very happy with a motor from Wal-Mart.
It's from an accessory fan for use in cars and trucks, it has a sort of
clamp to attach to the dashboard and a cigarette lighter plug on the cord.
Running it at 6 volts works perfectly for the clock, the slower speed
keeps it from being too noisy and easier to balance it.

Some day I gotta find time to update my webpage, I have lots of tips and
some new ideas. I want to scrap the memory capacitor and setting buttons,
and just have a photodiode near one of the LEDs - just hold your finger
near the digit you want to increment and the timing of the pulse back from
the photodiode is how you detect which one. Of course I need to finish the
code for that too.

Cheerful regards,

Bob


Cheerful regards,

Bob


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