GoKawiilUnusual clocks are a common idea for electronics DIY projects. The difficulty is never the timekeeping part; it’s making the clock look presentable. For my own take on the theme, you can check out the article I posted in May:
Clocks aside, some readers might recall that I’m a bit of a calculator nerd. For a while, calculators lagged behind general-purpose computing because of the lack of a suitable display technology. Some of the early designs used ticker tape, cathode ray tubes, or incandescent lightbulb panels to display the result:
Casio 14-A with a lightbulb-based display (1957).
A bit surprisingly, though, there were scarcely any calculators with electromechanical displays, so I decided to address this glitch.
I started with a 3 mm sheet of acrylic. I spray-painted the back side blue:
Display panel, rattle-can fun.
I then selectively removed some paint with and cut a number of openings on a CNC mills:
Display panel, machining.
The areas with lettering were then painted again to give these areas contrast and a cool three-dimensional look.
I constructed the display itself out of six generic “SO-45” panel voltmeters from Amazon, plus one vintage edgewise voltmeter scored on eBay. The meters are fitted with custom faces printed on adhesive paper (template file):
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