Forget a Ship in a Bottle and Build This Retirement Clock in a Bottle Instead
Pgeschwi decided make their own impossible bottle with a retirement clock inside, and has a guide explaining how they did it.
The classic “Ship in a Bottle” is just one of many “Impossible Bottle” categories. An impossible bottle is generally meant to be displayed, and is interesting because it contains an object that seems like it shouldn’t have been physically possible to fit through the bottle’s opening. The object can be put inside the bottle through a variety of means, such as molding the glass around it, expanding the object inside of the bottle, or assembling the item inside the bottle from many small parts. The latter is how a classic ship in a bottle is sometimes made. Pgeschwi decided make their own impossible bottle with a retirement clock inside, and has a tutorial explaining how they did it.
Before we get to an explanation of the electronics involved, we first need to let you down a bit by explaining away the magic of this impossible bottle. To get the electronics inside of the glass bottle, Pgeschwi simply cut the bottom end off. After all of components were placed inside and tested, they glued the bottom glass piece back into place. It’s not quite as impressive as building a model ship inside of a bottle, but it is a solution that is far easier for you to replicate at home. All you need is a cutoff saw or miter saw with an appropriate blade for the bottle, which will most likely be something like a diamond blade designed to cut through glass abrasively.
Aside from being housed inside of an impossible bottle, this is a pretty straightforward clock project. It’s controlled by an Arduino Nano board, which was chosen for its small size. Time is kept by a DS3231 RTC to ensure accuracy. The time is displayed across twelve 8x8 LED matrix modules. An LDR is used to adjust the display brightness based on the ambient light in the room. It can be programmed to show the time or to count down to an event (retirement in this case). A 3D printer was used to fabricate the bottle cap where the control buttons are positioned, for the bottle’s stands, and for the component mounts inside of the bottle. If you’re looking for a unique clock project, this could be the right design for you.
