How to create a 3D printed digital sundial homemade

Hi everyone,

Nowadays, we live in a world where everybody talks about the climat and the environnement.

If we want to leave something good for our children, we have to act every day by doing small actions.

When you are a maker and part of a community, you usually do things for your community to share, for fun or improve a new materials.

Today we are going to show you how to build a DIY digital sundial.

An open source project created by Julldozer of Mojoptix that allows us to see the time in digital depending where the sun is located like a real sundial but with digital numbers displays by the shadow.

He made this sundial that looks like an handle and a honeycomb at the same time. He created a matrix for each numbers and combined all of them to create that solar clock.

It can display the time from 10am to 4 pm.

To make your DIY digital sundial, you need to download the 3d printed file (on Thingiverse) and launch a 3d printing. No electronics parts or batteries are needed.

To make this sundial, you gonna need :

• 1 jam jar

• 3x M6 screws, flat head, length = 20 mm

• 1x M6 screw, flat head, length = 50 mm

• 4x M6 nuts

• 4x M6 washer, outside diameter < 14mm

To find the good time, you can turn the jar and synchronize it with you watch to display the good time.

The gnomon (the part with the honeycomb) must be choosen depending of your hemispher (north or south).

To have a brighter display of your time, try to set the angle between the ground and the gnomon equals to:

• in spring and summer: your latitude – 10°

• in fall and winter: your latitude + 10°

More details on the project can be found with this link : Thingiverse

You cand also find a interesting video at the end of this article.

Tips : Use ABS to print it and not PLA. PLA reacts to humidity and can be deformed with the time. Because it is supposed to stay outside.

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See you next week and have a good week-end. :-)