Data Time panaplex display clock

[Led-Time]

If anyone’s interested in vintage electric clocks this old digital Data Time may be right up your street. It’s a fully mechanically timed panaplex display clock there is no integrated chips or timer electronics inside its all powered by a 1rpm synchronous motor, I bought it a good while ago with a display problem the single minutes digit was out (bottom right). When I started to investigate the problem it was clear there was a lot of work needed doing inside, repairs to tracks, the motor drive lever was broken, electrical contacts were missing on a gear, the timing was off on the gearing which was causing the digits to read wrong and the motor was making strange noises it looked like someone had been tinkering but thankfully they had not damaged anything so after many months of carefully rebuilding, adjusting and tweaking its finally back up and running as it should. During the re-building I’ve taken pictures of the different parts I worked on.

This picture shows the position of the motor and the amount of wires needed to power four seven segment displays note the big brass spacers between the two pcb's...


Next is the motor, I removed it and took it apart to see what was causing the noise, it was dry as a bone inside after a clean out and re-lub its as sweet as a nut...


This picture shows the tracks and pads where the gear contacts run and three thin wires which are used to keep the gears located for timing the display...


Next picture shows the gear train re-installed and the newly fabricated drive lever fitted to the motor shaft, note the three wires holding the gears steady this took a horrendous amount of time to set-up...


This pictures shows the panaplex displays these are filled with neon gas and glow orange when power is applied, the same principal as nixie tubes but a seven segment display…


Finally the finished article, the top display shows the hours bottom the minutes turning the button on the back anti-clockwise advances the time. I’am really pleased how good it turned out…:-D




I've looked all over the internet for information on this clock, nothing not even anything on the motor manufacturer I'd guess the date as early to mid 60's due to there not being any electronics inside, of course if someone knows different…

[charger105]

Nice work Klippie. I've never seen a clock like this before......very interesting. I really like the orange segment display.

I was wondering how old it was too. It definitely appears to be sixties. Where did you get it from ?

Rgds,
Andrew.

[rewolf]

Very interesting, never seen anything like this before! I think it was well worth the work to get it going again.

[Led-Time]

Where did you get it from.

I got it from Ebay of all places, I was looking for watches and stumbled on the clock.

[retroleds]

Klippie: that clock is so freakin cool!! An Electro-mechanical digital clock - who would have thought. That motor looks just like a clothes dryer timer motor. I went looking on the Web for information too, even tried searching against the address, company name...nothing.

[Led-Time]

that clock is so freakin cool!! An Electro-mechanical digital clock - who would have thought

Imagine back in the day when someone came up with the idea for this clock they had to design a mechanism not only to keep accurate time but also to provide logic circuits to drive the displays it’s a fantastic bit of mechanical and electrical engineering. The best thing about it is the panaplex display for me this is the best seven segment display ever nothing tops that orange glow it looks amazing day or night.

Ed you mentioned you’ve looked around the net for info I spent way too many hours doing the same and drew a blank which is very strange you’d think there would be a little snippet here and there but no…nothing which is a big disappointment after spending lots of time getting it running properly, plus I’d like to know if its worth anything.

[digibloke]

That's a great clock you've got there and a really nice job you've done of getting it up and running again. There's an old advert for them here... Apparently they were 100 dollars new which must have been a fair old bit of dosh back then.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1972-Data-Time-LED-digital-clock-5-models-print-ad_W0QQitemZ370132017524QQihZ024QQcategoryZ165254QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I've got an old book on digital electric clocks at home. I'll have a look and see if I can find any more info for you.

[Led-Time]

Digibloke,

That’s outstanding, thank you...

I'am so pleased to find out the date 1972 and here was me thinking it was made in the 60's... I wonder why it was mechanical surely the electronics of the time were more than up to the job of driving the displays but I suppose considering 1972 was early in the days of integrated circuit consumer electronics (watches, calculators etc) perhaps they were too expensive to manufacture, who knows.Interesting to see other models in the range.

I've got an old book on digital electric clocks at home. I'll have a look and see if I can find any more info for you.

Please do, that would be very helpful, thanks...

[CompuChron]

I like the world clock on the ad,nice!!