Open Antikythera

Last July Update
about 1 month ago – Tue, Jul 30, 2024 at 08:03:24 PM

Hey there, Open Antikythera Kickstarter community, we still to this date haven’t received our Kickstarter backed Rownd CNC Mill yet, and despite our best efforts, we still haven’t found anybody to help us with this super precise and demanding task. So we (James & I) still have to manually make every single Axle, Rod and Dowel by hand using our Manual Mini Lathe, which is a super slooooow process, because it is very labor intensive, and that is what we are focusing on right now.  We are Open Source and can share with everyone who desires our specs for each Axle, Dowel and Rod.

To further compound the amount of labor, the total quantity of Axles, Rods and Dowels we would need for a FullMonty Antikythera device comes up to 1926, not the 1346 we originally estimated until July.

The good news is James has hopefully figured a way where we may be able to use tiny set screws (M3.5 x 7mm) instead of the 744 Double-Gear dowels we need while maintaining the same (or better) quality level. So we ordered 1000. If successful, this would save us from having to manually mill these 744 dowels. It certainly is worth the experiment.

So we have made at this moment a sub-total of: 474 out of the 1240 Axles, Rods and Dowels we will need to complete fulfillment and are continuing at (a slow) but steady pace.

Once this process is complete, the rest of the steps should be faster as our laser cutters are quick and all our 3D printers in our 3D print farm can operate without supervision.

Being Kickstarter (super) Backers ourselves, we certainly understand that you would all prefer receiving your FullMonty Antikythera assembled units or kits NOW, rather than reading about the amount of work it takes to get there… But there is a reason why no one else has ever offered commercially a complete working replica of the original Antikythera unit!

While this work is going on, James is also pondering on a spring loaded mechanism to keep the long (backside) needles to stay in their 18/19 year cycle spiral grooves.

Please understand that our UpFront (oratory section) is unique to us and quite cool by itself, but the full original Antikythera mechanism (implemented in our FullMonty) is about 2.5 times the complexity of our “truncated” UpFront.

Thank you for your patience, wonderful Kickstarter community. 

P.S. If any of you want to volunteer your help is assisting with the milling of these Axles and Rods, or the written documentation, please message us.

Thank You, 

- Marc & James

More mods for FullMonty Open Antikythera
2 months ago – Mon, Jul 01, 2024 at 06:51:03 PM

To further reduce friction and provide a better unit, we designed a support to hold the formerly unsupported end of the double gears axles. We are also redesigning the axle that holds the large pointers on the back (spirals).  So we had to source some bigger, heavier bearings.

On the left is the old axle and the new redesigned version is on the right side.

This week, we plan to continue manually milling the required 1346 brass axles, rods and dowels required to fulfill as our Kickstarter backed CNC Lathe (Rownd) has still not shown up yet.

Our god old manual mini lathe does a good job of making axles, but it sure is time intensive! We are praying for a ROWND CNC miracle!

June Update
3 months ago – Tue, Jun 04, 2024 at 08:38:30 PM

While we are very looking forward to completing fulfillment of all of our FullMonty Antikytheras, we are also focused on delivering a quality product.

We have shipped all rewards on schedule for our previous 2 Kickstarters and were totally planning the same for Open Antikythera. We have managed to ship a quality "UpFront" product on schedule so far, but we do believe we will slip a bit for the FullMonty.

These are not excuses, but:

• Quality is #1. We had to make some tweaks for the UpFront and these tweaks are required and more are needed for the FullMonty.
• We needed to optimize our part manufacturing/inventory processes and assembly method.
• We still need to update the assembly instructions for a FullMonty.
• We took the time to clean up, re-arrange our Design Studio with additional power and space to receive our Wazer (this WaterJet will allow the future production of solid Brass units with Brass Gears).
• We have started manually making every single brass axle, rod and dowel, one by one, on our mini-lathe and this will continue to be an on-going effort for a while.

We appreciate your patience, but unfortunately, despite multiple prototypes, we have not perfected our product yet.

Marc & James

Milestone achieved!
4 months ago – Mon, Apr 29, 2024 at 06:35:20 PM

Great news!

We are very proud to ship (on schedule), before the end of April, our assembled/tested Upfront Open Antikythera's (with or without wood sides) to all* who backed us at this tier level. If you backed us for an Upfront, Backerkit should have sent you a Tracking number by now.

I say "all*", because we still have a few folks who have not answered their survey, which results in us not having their address. - William (Lotus), we can't ship your unit until we have your address, Thank You.

There is no break for us, James has already been focusing on tweaking the Open Antikythera FullMonty design by modifying a few gears, axles and the middle plate. We may slip a bit on shipping of FullMonty kits and assembled units (June looks very near), but believe us, our goal is to provide you with the best product we can...

Thank you to our wonderful Kickstarter community for your patience!

• James & Marc

P.S. We have not yet isolated exactly how we will implement the 2 spiral tracking needles in the back of the FullMonty, but first, we need to focus on creating production units with minimal friction all around...

Quick Update
5 months ago – Fri, Apr 12, 2024 at 03:19:50 PM

Hello patient backers,

This is just a quick update to let all o y'alls know that we just finished shipping all UpFront Kits.

We have already started assembling the UpFronts and should be shipping them soon.

Please visit openantikythera.com (Products/Downloads) for detailed parts list and our YouTube channel for assembly videos and our Instructables for more details.

Thank You!