Antikythera Mechanism Build.

[Maets]

Enjoying watching this progress.

[Mechanism Man]

Thanks Meats, it's a challenging but fun project to do - I'm just waiting for my first big mistake to suddenly appear....

Well I think that I've cracked the current assembly that controls the movement of all the planet, Sun and date pointers anyhow - or at least proved that it works.
So, here are some photos of the first unit all put together and, more or less, working! This entire assembly slowly turns on its axis, with all the gearing gently spinning within it - it should look great in situ when it's actually running.

One of Saturn's gear pairs only meshes when it wants to at the moment, but that's mainly down to the fact that central core of tubes is only held at one point at the moment so the other end is free to move about a bit which pulls the gears out of position. Hopefully, when the rest of the framework is built, everything will be caged and held in its proper position and it'll all work beautifully... hopefully being the operative word.

More soon.
:-)

[Dr. Nikola]

Truly amazing work, and worthy of the very highest praise! 

[retech]

Stunning!

[Drew P]

 

[Mechanism Man]

Just in case you all thought that I'd gotten bored and given up, well I'm still here and beavering away, I just haven't got anything solid to show you. Progress is still good, but I just had a little bit of a two steps back to make one step forward situation to get through before starting the next unit.
After having a good play with the machine as it stood in the last photo, I came to the conclusion that although the gear work was all fine, the frames were just not good enough.
Unfortunately, when I first fitted the gearing to the frame work, I got myself very confused as to which gear went where and so drilled a few holes that should never have been drilled. I could fill these, but they would always be visible, and if the jobs worth doing...
More important than that though, I also didn't leave enough material to fit decent size spacer poles, my preference is for 6 mm wooden dowels, rather than the 3mm metal rods currently fitted which was all I had room for at the time - changing them will make fixing everything together so much easier.
Lastly, the purpose of the gear teeth running around the outside of the bottom frame is to provide the main input drive for the entire machine via the winding handle. I've decided to lose this in favour of a smaller gear that will be driven by a worm gear - both to be fitted later - so all three new frames can have smooth edges.
So while it's still at a relatively early stage in the build I have opted to cut three new frames and re-fit the existing gearing to them instead, it's a bit of re-work that's worth doing I think.
I'll hopefully have this all finished in the next day or two, and this time I'm staining and varnishing the bits that require it, as well as fixing all the gearing in properly so that I'll end up with the first properly finished unit.
That's the plan anyhow...


Slightly beefier frame design before cutting.

[Dr. Nikola]

This is exemplary work and cannot be praised highly enough.
It reminds us, however, how truly stunning were the original makers, 2000 or so years ago, considering they had to conceive the mechanism after probably hundreds of years of painstaking astronomical observations and laborious calculations.  There must have been predecessors, almost all of which may be lost forever in history.  So clockpunk or gearpunk may have a solid basis in fact which we ignore at our peril.  Tales of human-like automata in the ancient world  may be firmly rooted in fact, and not mere fanciful tales,

[Prof. Cecily]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Mmmmmmm, gears...mmmmmmmm.

Seconded.
Until I read this thread this morning for the first time, I had no idea the Antikythera Mechanism had been thoroughly deciphered, nor that it had been translated into Lego.
I raise a glass of elderflower cordial in honour of your project, Mechanism Man

I remain yours,
Prof. Cecily

[Mechanism Man]

It's taken a while, but I'm off and running again. The pictures show the rebuilt unit in its new colours with a slightly reworked layout. It's still missing six gears at the moment, but I'm awaiting some brass tubing to arrive in the post before I can finish this bit off. This look will follow through the rest of the machine.
More soon I hope!




]

[Maets]

Had to go out for fresh popcorn several times, but still watching.  Looking good.

[Drew P]

I ordered in.

[Herr Döktor]

Just pass that popcorn along the line, y'hear?

[Mechanism Man]

Here are a few pics with the last few gears fitted - and it works (again - but now properly)!
There is a slight bind on two of the gears which I'll sorry out tomorrow evening after work (working on a Saturday, who's idea was that...?).
Bye for now ladies and gents.
:-)

[Maets]

Is there any kink of lubrication on wood gears? 

[Mechanism Man]

Hey Maets,
No, no lubrication needed thank goodness. The gears are very low stress, and are not constantly driven (us humans get very bored, very quickly, winding a handle, so wear and tear is minimal). The only exception to this is when I have a metal worm gear driving a wooden gear on the orreries that I build - on these I use candle wax which works brilliantly. This machine will have a bevel gear input I should think rather than a worm drive - but maybe not, the jury is still out on that one at the moment!
:-)

[Mechanism Man]

So, hands up all those that actually want to see it doing something at last! I finally managed to fit it into a temporary frame so that I could give it a quick spin and make a film showing it sort of doing it's thing. The cocktail stick pointers are only temporary - honest.
It all seems to be working as advertised - all I have to do now is build the rest of it - what could possibly go wrong...?

http://youtu.be/G60GOw5FCUw

[Maets]

Looking good.  So you don't have to leave BG to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G60GOw5FCUw&feature=youtu.be#

[Mechanism Man]

After lots of head scratching and note book scribbling I've finally settled on the gear sizes for the rest of the machine, and the last couple of evenings has seen me printing them all out and getting the templates stuck down and ready to cut.
The job of actually cutting them out should keep me busy at the scroll saw for at least a week or so I should think, and then I'd really better start thinking about how I'm going to put it all together!
More soon.
:-)

[Maets]

That looks like a LOT of work.

[SeVeNeVeS]

That looks like a LOT of work.

Agreed, some top quality craftsmanship here, Im hooked.

[Drew P]

Have you lost yer mind!?!
And for some reason I thought you had those laser cut or something. Oh, wait, that's right, it's because they are so well crafted!

[SeVeNeVeS]

Have you lost yer mind!?!
And for some reason I thought you had those laser cut or something. Oh, wait, that's right, it's because they are so well crafted!

That's exactly what I thought, laser cutter, then realised these are all cut by hand. Outstanding!

[Mechanism Man]

You should all give it a go - it's very therapeutic! To be honest, I have been down the laser cutting route in the past, but I've only ever had limited success with the companies I've used - the gears that got sent back to me were not as good (or accurate) as I expected - there's obviously an art to cutting 6mm birch pine accurately!
I've been hand cutting gear wheels for long enough now to know how to get to an acceptable tolerance (they are not perfect), and also, with this subject in particular I thought that it was more appropriate to do as much by hand as possible. No electric tools 2000 years ago!
More soon folks, unless the gear cutting has sent me blind...
:-)

[Technomancer]

Can't believe I only just found this.  Very impressive project right there!

I love the gears too, how do you hand-cut them so accurately?
That's a skill I need to learn!

[RJBowman]

When you get it working, you should make the files available in laser-cutter format.