Art Engineering - Dave Bruckenstein


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Artwork Engineering

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David Bruckenstein
"P ulsar Clock"
March 2024

This is the 16th collaborative clock project that Dave Bruckenstein and I have completed.
This clock was inspired by Grain's video: "Aluminum Rings in Alternating Magnetic Fields". In his video he demonstrates electromagnetic levitation using Lenz's Law and Faraday's Law to levitate metal rings on a steel rod. We liked the magical aspect of levitating a non-ferrous metal item that could also include LED lighting. I quickly realized how simple it would be to reproduce his results and refine them.

To trigger this clock to display time, the small black cylinder on the left contains a magnet that is held near the clock to initiate the time display function. The white glowing bob will levitate up and down the steel rod once for each hour, then it will move up and down at a lower height to indicate each five minute increment. So a time off 1:10 would cause the bob to bounce up and down once at full height and twice up and down at a lower height. You can see the whole thing working in the video at the bottom of the page.

Within a few hours of committing to this project I had produced several test videos that I sent to Dave that are collated in the video below.

I sent Dave a sketch of how I would construct the levitating "Bob" so that it could include LED lighting. The sketch above shows a piece of half-inch copper pipe, but I later machined a piece of solid copper, and for the final clock I actually used a slightly larger chunk of solid aluminum - but that is not shown here.

This levitating part consists of several parts, from left to right:
1> Translucent acrylic disc
2> Delrin housing that I machined
3> Circuit board for four white LEDs and a bobbin with multiple turns of 24 gauge wire. This picks up the AC electrical energy field from the electromagnetic below to power the LEDs.
5> A machined ring of solid copper. (This is what accomplishes the levitation)

In the images above you see all of the electronics concealed inside the base. The yellow item in the center is a 24V 70W AC electromagnet that is controlled by the blue circuit board. You can also see a small black tombstone shaped housing for the real-time clock coin battery backup. I wrote all the firmware to control the levitation and access the real-time clock so it shows accurate time.

The bottom view above shows the red and blue buttons used to set minutes and hours. Right above them is a red/blue LED. To set time you press one of the buttons and the LED blinks red to indicate the time you have set. For instance if you press the H button it will blinks blue six times to indicate 6 o'clock. If you press the red M button it will blinks red once per five minutes so three blinks will be 15 minutes past the hour.

You can also see the bottom edge of the 6 inch plumbing pipe that I used to construct the main cylinder of the clock, it just so happened I had a scrap of this pipe laying around that was perfect for this project. I painted the whole clock with black hammertone and paint which is very durable and attractive.

We decided to make two different discs made from black and white acrylic sheet to go on the top so it can have different presentations with and without the discs.

This is the first "convertible" clock we have built and it's fun to be able to change it out.

Here's a YouTube Video showing how it works:

And here is a link to Dave's webpage for this clock.

Visit Dave's web site:
DAB's Clocks

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This is the 16th collaborative clock project that Dave Bruckenstein and I have completed. This clock was inspired by Grain's video: "Aluminum Rings in Alternating Magnetic Fields". In his video he demonstrates electromagnetic levitation using Lenz's Law and Faraday's Law to levitate metal rings on a steel rod. We liked the magical aspect of levitating a non-ferrous metal item that could also include LED lighting. I quickly realized how simple it would be to reproduce his results and refine them.

To trigger this clock to display time, the small black cylinder on the left contains a magnet that is held near the clock to initiate the time display function. The white glowing bob will levitate up and down the steel rod once for each hour, then it will move up and down at a lower height to indicate each five minute increment. So a time off 1:10 would cause the bob to bounce up and down once at full height and twice up and down at a lower height. You can see the whole thing working in the video at the bottom of the page. Within a few hours of committing to this project I had produced several test videos that I sent to Dave that are collated in the video below.


I sent Dave a sketch of how I would construct the levitating "Bob" so that it could include LED lighting. The sketch above shows a piece of half-inch copper pipe, but I later machined a piece of solid copper, and for the final clock I actually used a slightly larger chunk of solid aluminum - but that is not shown here.

This levitating part consists of several parts, from left to right: 1> Translucent acrylic disc 2> Delrin housing that I machined 3> Circuit board for four white LEDs and a bobbin with multiple turns of 24 gauge wire. This picks up the AC electrical energy field from the electromagnetic below to power the LEDs. 5> A machined ring of solid copper. (This is what accomplishes the levitation)

In the images above you see all of the electronics concealed inside the base. The yellow item in the center is a 24V 70W AC electromagnet that is controlled by the blue circuit board. You can also see a small black tombstone shaped housing for the real-time clock coin battery backup. I wrote all the firmware to control the levitation and access the real-time clock so it shows accurate time.

The bottom view above shows the red and blue buttons used to set minutes and hours. Right above them is a red/blue LED. To set time you press one of the buttons and the LED blinks red to indicate the time you have set. For instance if you press the H button it will blinks blue six times to indicate 6 o'clock. If you press the red M button it will blinks red once per five minutes so three blinks will be 15 minutes past the hour. You can also see the bottom edge of the 6 inch plumbing pipe that I used to construct the main cylinder of the clock, it just so happened I had a scrap of this pipe laying around that was perfect for this project. I painted the whole clock with black hammertone and paint which is very durable and attractive.
	We decided to make two different discs made from black and white acrylic sheet to go on the top so it can have different presentations with and without the discs. This is the first "convertible" clock we have built and it's fun to be able to change it out.
Here's a YouTube Video showing how it works:
And here is a link to Dave's webpage for this clock.