Reviving Vintage Station Clock with Modern Technology

Restoration of a Classic Station Clock

A vintage station clock has been recently restored after being purchased at an affordable price from a flea market. These analog clocks, once common in railway stations around the world, have been brought back to life using recent technology.

This construction utilizes an ESP32 C3-mini microcontroller in combination with an A4988 stepper motor driver. The logic is managed through MicroPython code, which enables the clock to effectively update its indicators.

The A4988 driver provides two H-bridge circuits, each for a stepper motor, although only one is used in this project. The clock needs to send a positive and then a negative alternating DC pulse every minute to accurately keep track of time.

The WiFi capability of the ESP32 C3-mini is efficiently used to retrieve current time information from the internet, making an HTTP request to a time server API to obtain the current hour, suitable for the desired time zone.

The project was highlighted by Piotr Topa, who wrote to share his progress. If you are interested in the applications of H-bridge circuits, be sure to check out the relevant tutorials to better understand the technology behind it!