Tindie

Vetinari Clock - the clock that ticks randomly but still keeps accurate time!

A clock that ticks randomly, but still keeps accurate time.

The Vetinari Clock is based on an idea from the Discworld series of books by the venerable Sir Terry Pratchett.

Lord Vetinari is one of the many recurring characters in the series. He is a powerful man, and the ruler of the biggest city on Discworld, Ankh-Morpork.

He is in possession of a very strange clock: It ticks irregularly but still keeps accurate time. It hangs in his waiting room, and is designed to be unnerving for the people who are waiting to meet him.

We’ve turned this concept into an easy to solder electronics kit!

The kit comes with a small PCB and all required parts, that you will solder. Also included is a medium-sized wall clock, that you will disassemble and modify, and then connect to the completed PCB board.

You will need to supply two AA batteries yourself.

PS: As of December 2013 we are shipping the Vetinari Clock with a new clock mechanism. The PCB and rest of the components are unchanged, but the firmware has been slightly updated to work better with the new clock mechanism.

Ask the first question!

Reviewed By

None

Great Fun

Feb. 17, 2014

Works just as expected. Loads of fun. Great value for the money. Thanks for the product!

Reviewed By

None

A bit of fun, but not worthy of the name Vetinari

Dec. 24, 2013

"Lord Vetinari also has a strange clock in his waiting-room. While it does keep completely accurate time overall, it sometimes ticks and tocks out of sync (example: "tick, tock... ticktocktick, tock...") and occasionally misses a tick or tock altogether, which has the net effect of turning one's brain "into a sort of porridge". (Feet of Clay, Going Postal)." - Wikipedia

With this clock, every tick appears random, this is not the essence of a Vetinari Clock. A Vetinari Clock is designed to put you on edge, to mess with your mind, and as described in the books, ticks normally most of the time, but occasionally doesn't. I am now looking into redesigning the code, once that is complete, ill put it in a mantle clock so it looks the part too. (The clock supplied is also somewhat cheap and tacky)

Not bad for a bit of fun, but not not something for a proper Discworld fan, it lacks authenticity both in the operation(code) and build quality(of the clock).

Response from the Seller

Dec. 26, 2013

Thanks for the review. If you make an alternative firmware, we'd love to try it out. The firmware at https://github.com/akafugu/vetinari_clock should be a good starting point. It is possible to tweak the randomness by changing around the values in the timingSequence and timingRandomisation arrays (just be sure to do it so that the clock still keeps accurate time).

We're aware that the clock movement doesn't exactly match the description in the books, but we chose it as the default anyway as it gives a nice effect, and is subtle without being so subtle that people don't notice.

About the supplied clock mechanism: This is a low-cost clock that we basically include for free in the kit. Using other clock mechanisms sometimes requires a small tweak to the source code, and thus requires a programmer.

The bit of the code that needs tweaking is:
#define ENERGISE_TIME 30

This sets the length of each pulse used to move the clock mechanism. If you try it out with a different mechanism and the second hand appears stuck, try to increase the value (to say 35), if the timer movement is very erratic, setting the value down (to 25) should help.

Reviewed By

stryker

A very polished kit

July 3, 2013

Thanks for the great little kit. The construction is straightforward and fun using the very detailed and accurate instructions. The whole thing is surprisingly simple and quickly assembled too.

This is a level of professionalism all kit makers should strive for.

Thanks !