Good afternoon
I was thinking how I could silence my pendulum clock during the night and restart it in the morning.
Searching the internet I found this YouTube video that seems the ideal solution.
Not knowing anything about Arduino controllers or stepper motors, I am after some help to build this little gadget.
Can anyone advise me what I would require, and briefly how to build it. I would like to include a small rechargeable battery to power it.
Thanks in anticipation
Clive Heaton
If you want to learn how to write some code start by reading the Arduino Cookbook and if you have no electronics background the Electronics Cookbook.
But if you just want the 'paint by numbers' approach, just use Google to find a similar project.
How wouls you set the time?
If the noise bothers you, get an electronic one.
There's probably more to this than meets the eye.
If it's not a silly question, how does the gadget know when to run the stepper motor?
To make something that say stops the clock at 11-pm and restarts it at 7-am, it will need its own clock, probably a Realtime Clock (RTC) chip.
As it stands, you have to reset the time every time it stops.
Possibly a better bet would be something that stopped and started the pendulum then reset the hands.
Or a reserve motor to run the hands while the pendulum is stopped.
makes this project a bit ambitious, unless you just want someone to hand you the entire design.
The last problem will be the most challenging; postponing making it battery operated will simplify your work. Forget battery power for now.
You will need an Arduino board and a servo to get started. I suggest you to start by doing nothing more than getting a servo to sweep.
The code and an article on that is available in the IDE. Look for the servo sweep example.
Those two components running the sweep sketch which you neither wrote nor messed with will be
a significant millstone, as it will mean
That will not be instant, nor will it be easy. It will be an accomplishment and solid basis to proceed.
And I too ask - how do it know when to restart? A possibility is that the Arduino has been fitted with a clock module (RTC), something that keeps real time and could be used to stop the clock at a certain time.
This is another feature (and ancillary hardware) that can be separated and put aside for now so
Your first "real" project could stop the clock when you press a button, and start it when you again press that button.
This also will not be easy, but will give you important pieces of what the ultimate project may need.
a7
The clock does not "tick-tock" for fun... it is the sound of the time escapement (thing that moves the hands). These keyholes are for winding the (1) escapement spring and (2) chimes spring, which replaced two weighted chains that once drove the two.
You could remove the mechanical "movement" and replace it with a battery-powered, electronic, movement. I bought some for US$5 and made a 2m diameter clock that ran for a year on one AA battery, and another "bicycle wheel" clock that has been running for three years.
I think the sound of a clock is very important. It creates a sense of time. It soothes the soul. In this sense, digital clocks that switch silently are missing out on a lot 
Some digital clocks, however, also make a sound when switching, and that's wonderful.
That is sacrilege. Very 50s and 60s USA style problem solving!
The clock may not even keep time very well, or indeed be used to tell time. It is a mechanical marvel: a thing of beauty from an age past but not quite yet forgotten.
File under I never would have thought of it, this servo stop and restart 21st century solution.
The stop motions and restart kick are fun to watch.
a7
I lived in a 120 years-old, one-room, schoolhouse (bumped out a bit) built 100 years after kicking-out the world's most powerful army and navy. We had a grandfather clock that we restored, which needed daily "weight moving." I currently ride a 1973 Raleigh bicycle because my 1957 Sears&Roebuck (with Sturmey-Archer 3sp hub) was run over with me riding it. It took me two months to learn to walk. I practice the value of using old stuff unti I die (because I unbent and fixed the 1957, and my child just told me my grandchild will use it, so I need to service it).
And, oh, the grief I got for mending the "baby bag" when it needed mending (because someone wanted a new one) was real.
The "electronic for mechanical" suggestion was to preserve the other intricate and old clock housing work. Spinning the hands every day will wear the fittings on the movement meant to hold the arms on the spindle. Forcing a spiring to retain tension will cause that spring to retain that shape and loose tension.
Fingering the US for being a tear-down culture is easy, but not accurate. I prove this daily, and I am just a grain of sand on the mountain. Just like any country, there are societies for preseration and restoration. The work they do is awe inspiring.
I would rather see the whole clock in the hands of someone who understands and preserves it, but having "made" a clock, I know I can give alternatives to creating an electronechanical form of the touch of an index finger and removing the weights (or unspringing the springs), and undoing that the next day, every day, until the clock is just a glass display shelf.
Thanks - that’s helpful and good advice 
Thanks
? ? ? What ?
Hi @ch230 !
If you’re not feeling completely desperate to find a solution, you might want to read this before you get started (especially the comments!):
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/01/quieting-a-pendulum-clock-every-night/
If you're still interested, here's some more information:
https://www.rurandom.org/justintime/index.php?title=Antique_Clock_Start_Stop_Automation
Good luck—choose wisely!
ec2021
It just occurred to me that if the tick tock noise of the clock is disturbing your sleep, you may have a much bigger problem (health) than clock noise. Once you are able to sleep properly, I doubt the noise will bother you. I grew up a block or so from a very busy rail line and those steam engines never woke me up.
The stopping mechanism in the video is one way but I wonder if a touch free way could be done by placing a magnet on both the pendulum and the stepper motor arm? Also the code could be simplified by using a 180º servo instead of the stepper.
Some people start and stop the clock at 12 hour intervals to prevent the need for resetting but that seems like it wouldn't appeal to everyone.
I don't know how much work it would be with your mechanism to add a motorized gear to engage and disengage so that the time could be reset without manually moving the minute hand.
Thanks
Thanks
