Antique Weather Clock

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Sometimes you just wake up and look out the window and it looks like skull and crossbone weather! That must be the symbol for nuclear war.

I used a fake antique (replica) that I picked up for cheep on ebay. I took out the clock work, and replaced it with a servo and used a phidgets USB – servo controller so I could control the servo from my computer. I had to use some gears so that the needle shaft would turn 360 degrees, since the servo only turns about 180. I also re-designed the face of the clock keeping a similar look to the original time piece. Once that was all set I created a little flash application that would connect to yahoo! weather service, and update the servo. I made it so it could toggle between current condition and the local forecast, and also made it so I could enter another zip code to see what the weather is in other places. Their weather service reports something like 40 different conditions, so I had to condense some of them, I combined some things, and ended up with 14 ‘conditions.’ [via] – Link

Update: originally posted to Make: earlier this year! Original link and more photos.

12 thoughts on “Antique Weather Clock

  1. RonGiuntini says:

    This is the best thing I have seen in quite a while. Something really useful and clever. Where can we find more detailed instructions? This is worthy of a magazine article, since it looks fairly simple to cobble together. I, for one, would like to see much more about this one..

  2. WNixon says:

    I second the previous commenters suggestion about making this a full fledged article. Has all the aspects of a perfect make!

  3. thisispete says:

    Hey, this is pete, Thanks for your comments! I wanted to point out that this was first posted on Make back in May 2006, here’s the link… some more comments there.

    http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/05/antique_weather_clock.html

    and more photos on my website here:

    http://www.thisispete.com/weatherclock.html

  4. hamachi says:

    can you share the code you used for the controller? or the app you wrote?

  5. ravendatajock says:

    i always wondered if the christian television stations had special weather reporters on standby just incase an armageddon occured. i mean come on, do you really think the regular weather anchors are prepared to forcast these kinds of things?

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