Rolling ball clock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A rolling ball clock is a clock which displays time by means of balls and rails.
Contents |
[edit] History
The rolling ball clock was invented by Harley Mayenschein in the 1970s. He patented the design and founded Idle Tyme Corporation in 1978 who manufactured these clocks before the rights were sold to Arrow Handicraft. They were originally sold as kits.
[edit] How it works
The original design of the rolling ball clock has three main rails - two labeled for minutes and one for hours. The bottom rail represents the hours. The middle rail represents the minutes in multiples of 5, while the top rail displays the numbers 1 through 4. By adding the displayed values of the two rails you get an accurate measurement of the minutes.
An electric motor scoops up a ball every minute. Every five minutes, the top rail will dump and deposit a ball on the second rail. Every hour, the upper and middle rails dump and one ball is transferred to the bottom rail to increment the hours. At 1:00 all three rails dump their balls to the feed rail at the bottom.
[edit] Variations
The original design used steel balls, while the "Deluxe" model sold in the 1980s was twice as big and had plastic balls instead. There are homemade versions of the design which employ a 9-minute top rail, with the middle rail representing multiples of 10. Arrow Handicraft also manufactured the coin clock, which used pennies instead of balls.
