
Show HN: I spent a year making an electro-mechanical prototype of a liquid clock - damjanstankovic
http://www.hellorhei.com
======
roymurdock
If you liked this, you'll probably also like Ferrolic:
[http://www.ferrolic.com/](http://www.ferrolic.com/)

Super mesmerizing to watch the ferro fluid making its way through the display.

Edit: I remember reading that the ferro fluid used in Ferrolic would begin to
lose its magnetic properties a few months in -

 _Ferrofluids are fundamentally unstable. They 're colloidal suspensions that
rely on surfactants to keep the particles apart, and as the surfactants
degrade, the particles start clumping together and falling out of suspension._
\- jpatokal [1]

Is the Rhei somehow designed to last longer? If so I would be really
interested in purchasing one if you ever decide to get them into production.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10053251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10053251)

~~~
damjanstankovic
If i use the regular ferrofluid it can last for quite long, however i dont
like the effect of the fluid in that case, it has spikes and doesnt really
look like a blob that i wanted to achieve. I have samples that are year old
and work just fine so far.

~~~
monopolemagnet
Higher viscosity filler fluid and/or a ferro-binding compound to dampen the
"springy" vibrations and ferro "spikes"?

Btw: Comes off a labor of love and insanely-awesome attention to design and
detail. Outstanding. Kickstarter/indiegogo/lockitron selfstarter page yet? :)

~~~
damjanstankovic
Yeah making just any prototype should have been much easier, i really tried to
make something that looks beautiful even when its not animated.

KS, maybe one day :)

~~~
monopolemagnet
Dude! You did already all that hard work; make some $$, gain more freedom,
while it's hot.

If the cost of making another example (parts, time, skill) can be made
_sufficiently below_ (say 30-50%) of a reasonable sale price, it _may be_
business. The real "hacking" done by contract manufacturers is cutting corners
to make something beautiful, functional and _inexpensive to manufacture_.

Challenge, should you choose to accept it, if not already:

Try to assemble a similar example with mostly scrap, for the least budget
imaginable. (Penny wise & pound wise.)

Another possible path:

Patenting and licensing to boutique clock makers / electronics firms, which
frees you from nearly all the headaches of dealing with advertising,
manufacturing and distribution (after negotiations, assuming one would usually
seek advice/assistance of trustworthy, relevant partners). Also, people may
not like patents, but it's a double-edge sword necessary to create a
survivable business... without that, the newbie wantrepreneur is often shoot
themselves, in not just one foot, but reloads to see if that stops the fail.
It's nice to broadly claim "patents are evil," but good luck making money
sustainably in an environment where anything & everything is knocked off,
without recourse (usually legal) of any measurable kind.

~~~
paulftw
Dude! Do you really think that KS is a quick and easy pile of cash, or let
alone has anything to do with freedom? Have you talked to anyone who got
funded that way, or maybe read a postmortem on a failed hardware campaign?

------
0x4a42
Awesome. :)

The slogan is geat too, I would just drop the "literally" at the end, I think
it's unneeded. "Time flows" is perfect IMHO.

Can you explain how did the idea grows in your mind?

~~~
eniax
seems that HN won't allow him post more so he messaged me the answer:

\--- yeah its funny, the first time i tried to make this was long time ago,
here is the video 3 years old:
[https://vimeo.com/42313987](https://vimeo.com/42313987)

The idea was pretty spontaneous. I saw CZferro toys online and wanted to play
with it so much. I ordered one and played with it and after a while i was
thinking why couldnt this be something concrete. I loved the idea of
translating something thats abstract in a visual sense to a concrete thing and
back.

After that a clock came as a logical object, since it changes non stop.

~~~
0x4a42
So you contreted your idea by concreting time as an object without a solid
susbstance. I guess you got it right. :)

Thank you for the explanation. ;)

------
DanBC
Beautiful object!

What was an unexpected problem you had? And how do you solve it?

There's a bunch of mechanical stuff going on. How much training did you have
in that before you started?

What one thing will you remember for your next project?

~~~
damjanstankovic
Hi DanBc,

Thanks a lot!

Wow... were to start.. Perhaps the biggest problem i had was preventing the
ferrofluid to stain glass and aluminum frame i used for the screen. I tried to
get some help on the faculty of chemistry here in Belgrade, but no real
success. Finally after months and months of experimenting with different
liquids, you start to feel and "undertand" the way ferrofluid behaves.. very
strange :) Its still not perfect but im working on perfecting it.

The first time i sketched the project seemed very easy, i will make a matrix
of electromagnets and simply attract the ferrofluid. It actually gave some
results but i realized that having a system that requires a huge amount of
electricity to be spent all the time to simply show a number thats fixed - is
not elegant. Here is one of the videos i recorded:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvp7bWe-M94](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvp7bWe-M94)

So finally i decided to go with neodymium magnets and mechanics. Building this
from scratch was a crazy adventure of lots of lathe machining and cnc
machining and so on.

I had no training basically i had to learn all along the way. I used
illustrator for the most of the construction, since i am UI/UX designer, and
finally gave it up and learned solidworks so i can make a whole 3d model of
the clock and assemble all parts in 3D.

For the next project i think i will have to curb the need to make it
"perfect", i lost A LOT of time beacuse of this. For example each time i
wanted to make a screen for this i had to buy a glass, cut it on waterjet,
then drill a hole, then glue to the frame that needed to be cut on waterjet
also and polished before adding adhesive and so on. And once it does not work,
i have to do it all again...

~~~
david-given
It's interesting to see that you're physically moving the magnets towards and
away from the ferrofluid. Did you investigate electrically switchable
permanent magnets?

e.g.:
[http://www.eclipsemagnetics.com/media/wysiwyg/datasheets/lif...](http://www.eclipsemagnetics.com/media/wysiwyg/datasheets/lifting_and_handling/optimag80e_datasheet_v4.pdf)

I know very little about them, other than that they're cool. The ones in that
datasheet start about at about 2kg, so I don't know if you can get them small
enough for your purposes.

~~~
damjanstankovic
yeah the size is the problem definitely. I experimented a lot with
electromagnets and finally gave up, any result i could get didnt leave me with
this kind of animation:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-drmRYsvUaM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-drmRYsvUaM)

------
gavanwoolery
Not to dismiss the website, but I could not reach it the first couple times so
here is a direct link to the video:
[https://vimeo.com/140469553](https://vimeo.com/140469553)

~~~
Crito
Does vimeo have some sort of unspoken rule that all videos must have a hundred
cuts a minute or something? This style of film making is incredibly obnoxious.

~~~
elinchrome
It's shown to increase excitement and therefore engagement.

~~~
Crito
It is also shown to decrease the information density (w.r.t. the _actual
subject matter_ ) of a video. So you have engaged viewers watching a video of
less substance... Reevaluate what you are optimizing for.

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sramsay
It doesn't seem to say so anywhere on the page, but "Rhei" is presumably a
reference to the ancient Greek phrase, "panta rhei" (πάντα ῥεῖ), which means
"everything flows." It's associated with the pre-Socratic philosopher
Heraclitus, and while the phrase itself doesn't occur in any of his extant
writings, it's reminiscent of his famous observation that you can never step
into the same river twice.

Pretty awesome name for a liquid clock.

~~~
StavrosK
Rhei is just Greek (modern and ancient) for "it flows" (ρέει).

~~~
Osmium
Which also gives us rheology (study of flow), diarrhea ("a flowing through"),
rhythm (measured flow), etc. Ultimately coming a Proto-Indo-European root
(*sreu-? I think), which also gives us the Rhine river and the word 'stream',
amongst others. The more you know.

------
coffeemug
That is absolutely beautiful. Congratulations on creating such a unique
object; you must be very proud of your work!

~~~
damjanstankovic
Thank you so much. I am really, considering the fact that i started almost 4
years ago, then paused after few months and then spent almost the whole last
year on it. Thanks again!

------
damjanstankovic
author here, i will be glad to answer any questions you guys have

~~~
robbrown451
I couldn't find anywhere in the video where it was changing the time in real
time....it either shows it while staying at a certain time, or shows it in
fast motion. Am I looking in the wrong place?

~~~
SammoJ
I was also desperate to see this. And rightly so, here's what looks like a
prototype link from above - and it's beautiful!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-drmRYsvUaM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-drmRYsvUaM)

You can really appreciate the difference between the gentle movement induced
with mechanically actuated magnets, and the nasty instantaneous movement which
would happen with electro.

~~~
damjanstankovic
Yeah it was the biggest challenge, how to gently move liquid and not "expose"
the mechanism behind it so it looks that liquid is moving on its own. I have a
lot more videos, feel free to send me an email stankovicdamjan@gmail.com i
will share. My plan is to publish the making of presentation by the end of
this week

------
damjanstankovic
Some of you asked for a video of nubmer changing. Here it is completely behind
the scenes with visible mechanics, enjoy:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/cjvngsya64m5bb7/rhei-prototype-
num...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/cjvngsya64m5bb7/rhei-prototype-number-
change.gif?dl=0)

------
trkulja
Hey guys,

Damjan asked me to post a comment here, he says he is sorry but HN is not
allowing him to respond to all coments quick enough. But stay assured he will
anwer each and every question. :)

Cheers.

------
whiskypeters
THIS is inventing a clock

~~~
elektromekatron
You know, not every situation calls for belittling the achievements of
children in the news.

~~~
tdylan
What achievement? Buying a clock from the 70s and putting it in a suit case to
bring to school?

~~~
elektromekatron
From my understanding of American culture derived from a thorough reading of
Peanuts, I thought you were supposed to bring hastily assembled items to
school. You wouldn't dare say something like that to Sally Brown about her
leaf collection.

------
adambutler
Anyone know what the music is here? Shazam seems to be giving me false results
:(

~~~
damjanstankovic
Its a stock music from audiojungle :)

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dec0dedab0de
I want these as individual 7 segment displays. Or 16 segment.

------
personjerry
Just FYI I interpreted the URL as "Hell or Hei" which might not be the
impression you want to give.

~~~
evan_
I assumed that was intentional- "come hell or high water", liquid clock, it
makes a lot of sense in a punny sort of way.

------
dzonikesh
Great man, I would like to purchase this clock! Please sell me that prototype
:D

~~~
damjanstankovic
umm.. that would be very expensive :))

~~~
andrethegiant
Any ballpark figures you'd like to release?

------
jonah
Really nicely done!

Is all the equipment yours or did you work in a Makerspace or something?

~~~
bigiain
Check out the credits at the end of the page:
[http://www.hellorhei.com/](http://www.hellorhei.com/)

No mention of a particular Makerspace, but obviously a lot of collaboration
with people with various tools/skills.

~~~
damjanstankovic
Yeah, so far no makerspace here in Serbia, however we have a lot of small
local businesses and craftmans that you can pay to get something done.

------
andreasklinger
How can i buy one of these? And how much does/would it cost? :)

~~~
damjanstankovic
At the moment its only a prototype. After some testing, if it reutrns
promising results i would be more than glad to produce a smaller quantity of
these. Unfortunately i have no idea about the price, sorry.

~~~
bentrevor
A DIY kit would be great - I would pay for just the parts and instructions.

------
gopalv
Magnets & ferro fluids, excellent.

Because of the video, I can literally see through the box into the 7 segment
magnet chunks moving with the servos when the time ticks over. I like the
simplicity & the way the tick flows into shapes.

@damjanstankovic: can you throw up a Cinegraph/GIFV below the fold or
something, so that the flow is clearly visible before we even head into the
video itself?

Like a 1,2,3...9 sequence for the last digit, because the beauty of that
should hit the next person who clicks this.

~~~
damjanstankovic
I am just working on this :) Somehow we missed to put a part of the
transforming numbers in the video because we were on such a tight schedule. I
will be updating website and more important i will launch the making of
document of the whole project that will show all of this.

GIF on the way :) thanks a lot!

------
Namrog84
This reminded me a lot of the "world of goo" you should check it out I'd you
haven't. It's an indie game. (PC originally but later ported to phones)

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kodisha
I found it on youtube too!
[http://youtube.com/watch?v=p5b_m6ucpAQ](http://youtube.com/watch?v=p5b_m6ucpAQ)

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noonespecial
I love this sort of build video. I wish I could watch for hours the setting up
of the various machines and the construction of the different parts.

------
josephpmay
The project itself is amazing, but this is also one of the most beautiful
websites and captivating videos I have seen in awhile.

~~~
damjanstankovic
Vide is a product of two very talented guys, Djordje Stojiljkovic and Nenad
Veljovic. I will pass on your compliments to them. As for the website, that
would be my primary profession UX/UI design :) Althugh it was all done in 1
day.

~~~
pavornyoh
You guys did a good job!! Amazing.

------
asadlionpk
This somehow reminds of iOS game Feed Me Oil.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6qhbZkMA0Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6qhbZkMA0Q)

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comrh
This definitely the clock that would sit on Rorschach's desk.

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alexjv89
Really loved the project. Would love to get one of these if you ever make this
available to purchase.

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otto_ortega
Call the cops he has a clock!!! j/k... What a wonderfull piece of engineered
art.

~~~
damjanstankovic
Thank you, the making of presentation coming soon!

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YogeeKnows
Damn! Time to scratch this idea off my list. GJ

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mortal
This is a great project. As someone has mentioned, check out
[http://www.ferrolic.com/](http://www.ferrolic.com/)

~~~
Alan__Smithee
Also a great project but I like the design and the fluid itself better with
Rhei

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burek85
Simply amazing.

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pavornyoh
Very impressive.. I'd buy one too.

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fabrigm
Congragulations... It's great :)

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bitwize
Just don't bring it to school!

~~~
RyJones
He didn't shuck a Micronta clock and hot glue it into a pencil case.

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mattmaroon
Why does the press kit make me download a zip? I just wanted to learn more.
Cool idea though.

~~~
damjanstankovic
It was mostly for newspaper websites so they can get photos when they are
publishing stories. Thanks!

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CamperBob2
Flash = not viewable here. Why not put this on YouTube instead of Vimeo?

~~~
privong
I don't think it's a flash issue (unless it's something else with the parent
site). I was just able to watch the video on vimeo in linux+firefox, and I do
not have flash installed.

~~~
anonova
Vimeo's player does indeed default to HTML5 video [1].

[1]: [https://vimeo.com/player](https://vimeo.com/player)

