Author Topic: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?  (Read 31144 times)

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Offline ker2xTopic starter

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #100 on: September 03, 2014, 01:33:26 pm »
a very small flip dot display for the day fields onwards, and an lcd for the hours minutes seconds, that stays on for a few minutes after pushing a button? in my own experience an LCD lasts longer when not constantly on and not in even medium brightness sunlight for extended periods,

I Commonly deal with automotive displays from the early 90's which have suffered mechanical faults but have not faded by any great measure, By mechanical faults it is generally from a poorly designed plastic housing warping over time and stressing the die on glass controllers connections, or the flat flex traces debonding from the material, in the direct sunlight cases,

That on its own would likely be a decent place to look, as there are a large number of automotive LCD clock displays out there, and i have no doubts if you kept a few spares tucked under some cover it would not be cheating as long as it did not loose time while replacing,

This project only count days  ;)
often times... there are other approaches which are kinda crappy until you put them in the context of parallel machines
 

Offline coppice

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #101 on: September 03, 2014, 01:40:39 pm »
  • the liquid crystal in all types of LCDs are known to degrade over time
  • E-ink isn't proven and manufacturer claims of 5 years: http://www.eink.com/sell_sheets/pearl_spec_sheet.pdf
  • LEDs have a theoretical life expectancy of 20000 - 50000 years (but real-life figures are variable)
  • Mechanical devices have obvious wear issues
I don't know about LCD material degrading over time. I thought LCD displays only degraded with use, because of asymmetry in the waveforms. If you only run the LCD when it is needed I think the lifetime can be extremely long. I believe cholesteric displays have an enormous expected lifetime, because you don't need to keep refreshing them.
 

Offline ziggyfish

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #102 on: September 03, 2014, 01:59:29 pm »
There are a couple of ways you could do it. But I would recommend:

oscillator + microcontroller + solar + mechanical counter.

Day = oscillator hz * 86400

Program the microcontroller with a simple digital counter (store in one of the controllers registers), everytime the digital counter gets up to the value Day. Move the mechanical counter up by one, and set the digital counter back to zero.

Its that simple.

Thanks

Brendan
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #103 on: September 03, 2014, 02:14:40 pm »
There are a couple of ways you could do it. But I would recommend:

oscillator + microcontroller + solar + mechanical counter.

Day = oscillator hz * 86400

Program the microcontroller with a simple digital counter (store in one of the controllers registers), everytime the digital counter gets up to the value Day. Move the mechanical counter up by one, and set the digital counter back to zero.

Its that simple.

Thanks

Brendan

Instead of a mech counter, how about taking a battery operated wall clock, replacing the scale so that the long hand counts 1-10 years, the short hand shows 10s of years (up to 120), and the sweep hand shows (approx) weeks.
 This would only need enough power to kick the motor every 6-ish days. The avarage draw would be in the sub-uA range
Put some solar cells on the face, and enough dry capacitors to hold for a few days.

If placed on an indoor wall it should easily get enough light to manage 1uA avarage.
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Offline PA0PBZ

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #104 on: September 03, 2014, 02:20:12 pm »
Instead of a mech counter, how about taking a battery operated wall clock, replacing the scale so that the long hand counts 1-10 years, the short hand shows 10s of years (up to 120), and the sweep hand shows (approx) weeks.

How is that not a mech counter?  >:D
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Offline ziggyfish

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #105 on: September 03, 2014, 02:24:09 pm »
  • Mechanical devices have obvious wear issues

Using a mechanical counter, the device will change at max 36,524 times over its lifetime. Considering your car's odometer changes 15,000 times on average per year. I don't think there it would be that much of an issue.
 

Offline janekm

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #106 on: September 03, 2014, 03:29:53 pm »
But does the odometer from a car that's been sitting in storage for 100 years still work? Or has the lube dried out? The gears rusted? The plastic degraded? (in fact, a watch that only moves once a day might seize up more easily!)
Mechanical watches are intended to be services every 5 years or so, at a minimum to get re-lubricated...

My gut feeling is that trying to build a mechanical indicator that is guaranteed to work without maintenance for 100 years would be trickier than finding a solid-state type of display that would.

 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #107 on: September 03, 2014, 05:54:42 pm »
Instead of a mech counter, how about taking a battery operated wall clock, replacing the scale so that the long hand counts 1-10 years, the short hand shows 10s of years (up to 120), and the sweep hand shows (approx) weeks.

How is that not a mech counter?  >:D
it's a dial, not a counter :)
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Offline Rerouter

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #108 on: September 03, 2014, 08:47:00 pm »
Janekm is dead on the money with the odometer example, i have worked on a 1890's military jeep's instrument cluster, and based on the owners knowledge it had to be serviced and the entire gear set replaced every 30 years or so,

When we had gotten to it, the lubrication had well past evaporated, the metal on metal shaft had rusted seized, which munched the brass gears, (it was interesting as we had no chance of there being spare parts....), automotive clocks between the late 60's to late 80's tended to have metal gears and metal bearings, over time the bearing would widen from the weight of the gears and eventually the gear stops making contact with the rest of the assembly.

Next along, metal shaft, plastic bearing, a large number of automotive dashes with number wheel displays face this problem, some form of oil or binder eventually sweats out of the plastic, which even on daily driven vehicles will add enough friction that it will eventually munch the plastic gears used in these models, drilling in and fitting a brass bearing gets almost another 15-20 years out of it, but it then suffers from the above when the metal shafts coating gets scraped by the brass and it rusts,

and finally plastic on plastic, I more commonly see this with modern automotive clocks, say 1995 onwards in vehicles not using a digital display, I believe a change in plastics has resolved most of the sweating issue, but in its place the plastic soaks up any solvent in the air so 10 years down the track it just crumbles to dust if you try and set the time,

For this project i would actually recommend metal on plastic, if you had to go mechanical, if the gears where also metal i believe these automotive clocks which should be going through far worse conditions could have worked up to 40 or 50 years if the plastic gears could not crumble,
 

Offline Prime73

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #109 on: September 03, 2014, 08:53:21 pm »
there are self lubricating ceramics which potentially could be used to create gears, ball bearings, etc for the mechanism. I'm not sure about ceramics gears, however ceramics in general survive hundreds of yeah and more.
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #110 on: September 03, 2014, 09:08:35 pm »
Didn't the watchmaking industry solve this a while ago with jewelled bearings?
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Offline denelec

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #111 on: September 03, 2014, 10:45:57 pm »
Janekm is dead on the money with the odometer example, i have worked on a 1890's military jeep's instrument cluster, and based on the owners knowledge it had to be serviced and the entire gear set replaced every 30 years or so,

A Jeep in 1890???  Steam powered?
 

Offline lewis

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #112 on: September 04, 2014, 12:19:06 am »
I don't see this project as being massively difficult, as long as you don't expect it to be entirely self-powered, with a display, for 100 years:

# Low power RTCC chip for timekeeping, or ridiculously low power MCU on its own. Flash retention issue solved by self-reprogramming the MCU 'periodically' (every 10 years). http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/20005010F.pdf achieves <1uA and has leap-year compensation built in to year 2399.

# Crystal accuracy can be improved by calibrating for precise frequency during manufacture, and temperature compensating during use. Use redundant oscillators and RTCCs if you're paranoid, at the expense of power consumption.

# Energy harvesting power source - the key is to power it from as many sources as possible. Mains power + Lithium battery + solar cells, thermocouples, microphone, piezo, coil antenna, wind-up mechanism, whatever etc, all charging a supercap for powering the RTCC. We must be able to get a few microwatts out of the air somewhere. Oversize the supercap and battery to allow for degradation. LT make some energy harvesting stuff: http://www.linear.com/parametric/energy_harvesting

# "Mains Power" means 3-30V AC/DC - who knows what sort of voltages will be around in 100 years, but it's a safe bet we'll be able to feed this thing with 12V from somewhere, somehow. Since this is the only direct electrical interface to the outside world, protect it heavily with TVSes and redundant polyswitches.

# Use whatever display you like, but only light it up when it's powered from the mains. Gives incentive for customer to mains power it thereby increasing the time the unit is powered from a reliable source. LED is probably the best lifetime - they reduce in brightness, but never 'die' unless you overdrive them. Mains power also charges internal lithium battery and supercap.

# Make a mould, and pot the whole thing under light vacuum in a cube of transparent ('optically clear') polyurethane resin. Sort of like this (but use good resin) http://www.ebay.com/itm/EPOXY-RESIN-CRYSTAL-CLEAR-CASTING-IMBEDDING-1-5-GAL-KIT-/220350141369. Use IP-rated vandal-resistant switches for setting the countdown time, or use capacitive or optical sensing only when mains power is present or there's significant charge in the battery. Potting will help prevent the supercaps drying out and make it "infinitely" rugged (no tin whiskers, moisture ingress, corrosion, or susceptibility to mechanical damage to worry about). Transparent shows off the internal construction, and you don't need to worry about holes to see the display through.

Not a trivial project, but I don't think it's beyond the realms of the hobbyist with today's technology. Nuclear power sources notwithstanding.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2014, 12:23:06 am by lewis »
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Offline coppice

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #113 on: September 04, 2014, 02:03:10 am »
Janekm is dead on the money with the odometer example, i have worked on a 1890's military jeep's instrument cluster, and based on the owners knowledge it had to be serviced and the entire gear set replaced every 30 years or so,

A Jeep in 1890???  Steam powered?
I wonder if Stanley or Doble ever made a 4 wheel drive?  :)
 

Offline Rerouter

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #114 on: September 04, 2014, 08:04:46 am »
Sorry, 1920, should not have gone off memory alone,
 

Offline janekm

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #115 on: September 04, 2014, 06:15:13 pm »
Didn't the watchmaking industry solve this a while ago with jewelled bearings?

Apparently they still need lubrication. Possibly to slow down the wear of the metal? The jewels can have Mohs hardness 9 after all...
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #116 on: September 04, 2014, 06:31:00 pm »
You can slow down the wear with jewelled bearings and ceramic shafting along with aluminia gears, but you will need to hermetically seal the whole movement in a dry atmosphere, preferably He, or Ar. That will last a century before wear gets too bad in a clock mechanism with a 20 second pendulum period. Driving the mechanical counters with a hour pulse and having a series of dials that move around without a Geneva to click over ( extra wear points) you likely could get close to a thousand years of operation out of it. That is doable with a solar panel to provide power and a large multilayer high voltage ceramic capacitor ( run at low voltage but using the high voltage rating to derate the stress on the insulation) to store power for night use.

Another would be to have the solar power only operate a counter mechanism to increment the day count, and simply use the electronics to implement a 12 hour delay between clock pulses.
 

Online Marco

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #117 on: September 04, 2014, 06:52:49 pm »
Any other ideas?
I think some form of bistable electrowetting is the best bet.

http://www.adt-gmbh.com/en/technology/basics-patent-background.html

Or maybe float a dial in a liquid, centered with magnets and turned with electromagnets?
« Last Edit: September 04, 2014, 07:00:44 pm by Marco »
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #118 on: September 04, 2014, 07:25:31 pm »
Didn't the watchmaking industry solve this a while ago with jewelled bearings?

Apparently they still need lubrication. Possibly to slow down the wear of the metal? The jewels can have Mohs hardness 9 after all...
If you do it as a clock where 24hrs = 120 years, wear won't be an issue
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Offline ker2xTopic starter

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #119 on: September 07, 2014, 08:08:55 pm »
They claim infinite shell life  :o
http://aquacellbattery.com/

No datasheet, of course  ::)
« Last Edit: September 07, 2014, 08:11:10 pm by ker2x »
often times... there are other approaches which are kinda crappy until you put them in the context of parallel machines
 

Offline janekm

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #120 on: September 07, 2014, 08:14:59 pm »
They claim infinite shell life  :o
http://aquacellbattery.com/

No datasheet, of course  ::)

Yeah, but only until activated so they won't deliver any power in the "infinite shelf life" state... After that they seem to be a regular zinc carbon battery, i.e. very crap (~10% per year self discharge...).
 

Offline FrankBuss

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #121 on: September 07, 2014, 08:28:07 pm »
And they don't even provide a capacity number (or I can't find it on their website). Probably because it is so bad compared to a standard battery.
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Offline G7PSK

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #122 on: September 07, 2014, 08:53:56 pm »
Sorry, 1920, should not have gone off memory alone,

First Jeep was 1941.
 

Offline mechtheist

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #123 on: September 07, 2014, 11:30:06 pm »
Just an FYI some might find interesting: From wiki:  Longplayer is a piece of music that is designed to last for one thousand years. It started to play on January 1, 2000, and if all goes as planned, it will continue without repetition until December 31, 2999. It will restart on that date.

"Longplayer" is based on an existing piece of music, 20 minutes and 20 seconds in length, which is processed by computer using a simple algorithm. This gives a large number of variations, which, when played consecutively, gives a total expected runtime of 1000 years.

It plays at Bow Creek Lighthouse at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London.

using Tibetan singing bowls and gongs [not exactly a great way to go for 1000 years.]  Check out Tom Scott's take on it 
 

Offline janekm

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Re: a 100y lifetime project : incredibly difficult ?
« Reply #124 on: September 08, 2014, 09:41:56 am »
Just an FYI some might find interesting: From wiki:  Longplayer is a piece of music that is designed to last for one thousand years. It started to play on January 1, 2000, and if all goes as planned, it will continue without repetition until December 31, 2999. It will restart on that date.

"Longplayer" is based on an existing piece of music, 20 minutes and 20 seconds in length, which is processed by computer using a simple algorithm. This gives a large number of variations, which, when played consecutively, gives a total expected runtime of 1000 years.

It plays at Bow Creek Lighthouse at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London.

using Tibetan singing bowls and gongs [not exactly a great way to go for 1000 years.]  Check out Tom Scott's take on it 

Which appropriately is effectively a musical clock: http://longplayer.org/about/how-does-longplayer-work/

(though as far as I can tell the actual performing is done by humans?)
 


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