Soyuz Clock (Mechanical)

Soyuz Space Clock (Mechanical Version)

After we restored our digital Soyuz Space Clock , collector Steve Jurvetson lent us the previous mechanical version of the clock for restoration. It is downright spectacular.

Interactive 3D Model

Viewer Michaud Venant made a virtual interactive 3D model of this clock. You can move it around, turn the controls, and generally play with it at:

https://soyuz-clock-viewer.vercel.app/

Video Series

In the first video, we open the clock, make a few repairs, and manage to make it work again.

The video above is an excerpt of the livestream of the clock opening. It took us a whopping 7 hours, but if you go to the chapters I have highlighted the interesting moments.

In part 2, we take a much closer look at the details of the clock, how it works, and exercise every button and every remote function

In part 3, I build a box for driving the clock as a present to its owner...

...You can see me delivering it to Steve a few episodes later.

Lab Notes

My lab notes include the internal schematics of the clock, the connector pinout diagram, an external connection diagram and the atomic clock driver arrangement.

Here is a diagram of the controls on the front panel

Here is the internal schematics of the clock

Here is the external connections diagram which I implemented with my GSE control box in part 2, and the connector pinout

In this diagram you can compare the pinout of the digital clock with that of the mechanical clock. Similar, but not exactly the same.

Here is the atomic clock driver setup

Here are the connections to the quartz driver, chronometer controls and alarm circuits which I ended up making for Steve Jurvetson, more details in the section below.

Clock Driver

I made a clock driver box as a gift to Steve Jurvetson so he could demonstrate his clock. And believe it or not, soon I got requests for more from other collectors! Here are more details so you can reproduce it if you wished to.

The box was quite elaborate with a power supply for the clock and a sound system that could generate several alarm tones and buttons that emulate the spaceship commands to remote control the chronometer functions.

But for the basics all you need is a 0.5Hz 28V pulser. I made two versions, one based on TTL dividers and one based on an Atmel ATtiny2313 microcontroller.

I did not make a PCB for the boards, I just "Fritzed" them on breadboards then soldered them on perma proto boards from Adafruit. The Fritzing files are available below.

Here is the TTL version made with a 2MHz oscillator, 74LS390 divide-by-hundred chips, and a NMOS transistor amplifier.

Here is the ATtiny2313 version, where the pulse generating section is replaced by the microcontroller. It is smaller so I ended up using that in the final box.

Here is the schematics for the board. A high resolution version of it is in the design documentation below. I did not bother to detail the wiring of the sound system which was implemented with an Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board.

I built two extra boards for collectors. There are more of these clocks around than you'd think!

Soyuz Clock Driver Documentation

You'll find the documentation for the drivers below, including the compiled hex file to upload the code to the ATtiny chip.

Clock Connector Information

Here is some information about the Soviet connector used by the clock. It is a 19 pin connector, 18 mm in diameter, model RS-19TV or PC19TB. I was able to find some on eBay from Bulgarian seller pentodbg. The pinout is in the driver schematics above.

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