Open Antikythera

March Update
about 1 year ago – Sun, Mar 23, 2025 at 02:55:22 PM

Good news!

All kits have been shipped and by now, most kits have been delivered.
Please know that we are here to help you successfully assemble your kit, so please contact me directly with any questions or comments.

For that purpose, and because we need to build many units, James came up with a set of 7 jigs to help assemble the back needle shaft assemblies.

The design STL files are available for free download on our website under Products, Downloads, Open Antikythera.   

Back Assembly Spacing Jigs

The usage videos will soon be available on our YouTube channel as usual, here it the link:

The best way to reach us is by e-mail to me or a private message via Kickstarter if you don't have my email yet.

In the meantime, we have been very busy working on assembling sub assemblies.

Let's answer the question about our expected assembled units shipping timeline.

We have started by building the first 4 units and shipping them by early April.
Phase 1 will conclude with the shipping of half of the assembled units sometime in May.
By then, we should have the process pretty much ironed out and the rest of the components hand-crafted.
Phase 2 should then complete in June with every unit assembled and hopefully shipped.

Note, if you are an International backer, please be prepared to be available to receive your valuable unit and pay for your destination country tariff or import duties/taxes if applicable. We have no control over foreign government import laws and policies. A tracking number will be provided and please watch it closely.

Please note that we still have some 400 axles, rods and dowels to machine by hand (out of the needed 1020 for assembled units or 2150 total including kits already shipped). We are getting faster at making these. We still need to receive this week the material and design the cardboard packing to ensure you receive your assembled units in a safe condition.

Good news is that 95% of the 3D printed components are done (average 10 hours of printing per unit), 30% of the laser cutting/engraving is done (average 10 hours per unit), and the laser is faster than we are, so no worries there...

It should be noted that while the unit we built on camera only took about 5 hours, don't feel bad if it takes you multiple evenings to achieve the same result...

You can expect another update shortly, once we ship units to the first few backers on our list.

Stay tuned and remember that we are so grateful to all our backers of the FullMonty Assembled/Tested units of our Open Antikythera for your continued patience. Your wait is coming to an end soon, and we hope you will be delighted by the improved product that the extra time allowed us to come up with.

• Marc, James & Mathieu

February Progress Update
about 1 year ago – Wed, Feb 26, 2025 at 08:00:04 PM

Hooray!!! Great news:

Kickstarter shows us as 75% completed on our fulfillment. All Kits have shipped as of today which means everyone who ordered a kit should have the pleasure of receiving it soon. A tracking number was provided when it shipped.

If you ordered a kit from us and have not received your tracking number yet, please message me ASAP so I can provide it to you.

I am personally looking forward to receiving your feedback on our packing and your progress on assembling your kit as we have given a lot of thought to every detail.

Start by loading the flashdrive (USB stick) in your computer and read the ReadMeFirst.

Please post unboxing and assembling pictures and video to your favorite social media sites and mention stgeotronics.com.

Our Youtube video with assembly instructions is online (and on the flashdrive), feel free to leave a comment with any questions or concerns during the process.

Please note that all kits (UpFront and FullMonty) start by building the rotating assembly which is demonstrated on all 3 builds that we documented on YouTube.

The good news for those of you patiently waiting for your assembled unit is that now that this important milestone is behind us, we can now focus on building your personal Open Antikythera!

Thank You for your support ...and patience!

-Marc & James

January Update
about 1 year ago – Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 02:09:19 PM

Dear Kickstarter Backers,

Great News! We have started shipping our Open Antikythera FullMonty kits!

We’ve done our due diligence, and the Laser cut parts, the 3D printed parts, and the manually milled axles are perfect. The included flash drive contains a Demo video and transcript of a full assembly along with Bill of Materials and Reference Materials, Schematics, Pictures, etc. We will also be including a wonderful instructable like the ones we made for Open Enigma, Open DSKY and Open Antikythera UpFront. We have decided to start shipping without it and get the Instructable done WHILE we are continuing fulfillment, in order for you to get your kits ASAP.

While you wait, feel free to watch our unboxing video and the (just released) real-time demo assembly of the Open Antikythera Full Mechanism on our Youtube channel: 

The instructional video can also be found here:

NOTE: We are truly sorry that our FullMonty Open Antikythera is taking more time than expected to deliver, but we want this product to deliver as much joy as our Open Enigma and Open DSKY have been for the last 12 years and 5 years respectively.

Please believe us, we are a tiny company, but we do our best to produce the BEST and ONLY commercially available Fully functioning Complete Replica of the Antikythera Mechanism.

Furthermore, we think that without our extensive use of Flange Bearings and manually produced Axles, Rods and Dowels by machining each unit by hand, one at a time to an utmost precision, you cannot find a smoother driven (minimal friction) COMPLETE replica of the famous Antikythera Mechanism. And finally, ours is Open Source by definition.

Expect a well packed kit, with a detailed list of the 300 parts in PDF format on the flashdrive.

You can message me privately with questions, concerns, feedback, etc.

Quick reminder for those that are new Kickstarter backers, feel free to visit this official Kickstarter FAQ for answers to common questions. It’s a great resource that applies to backers of all projects on Kickstarter:

https://help.kickstarter.com/hc/en-us/categories/115000499033-Backer-questions

Our Marketing agency (Jellop) did a fantastic job, but instead of the anticipated 20-30 backers, we ended up close to 100.

We are a 2 guy operation, operating part time and we are makers, proud hand-crafters, weaim to under promise and over deliver.

Because we are a client of Jellop, we were (at the last minute) offered the opportunity of showing our Kickstarter Open Antikythera (and Open Enigma and Open DSKY) for free at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES25) in Las Vegas. 

An impossible to refuse chance to introduce our Open Antikythera to a portion of the over 100,000 visitors at no cost for a table!

We were featured on various Media including this one from Australia:

Ancient computing meets modern craftsmanship

What an experience! and now that we are back and rested, shipping of Full Mechanism kits has started and we are working on the next batch.

Thank you for your understanding and continued patience.

Marc, James and Mathieu

December Update
over 1 year ago – Wed, Dec 18, 2024 at 12:27:37 PM

Alrighty, so we have ordered and received 1000 screws #2 x 1/2" and 1000 screws #2 x 3/8", thinking we were screw rich. Only to realize that we had about 25% of the screws we were going to need.

Just like Santa Claus, we made a list and, in the process of checking it twice, realized we had a couple of discrepancies which we are addressing right now. Each Production kit ends up using 44 bearings and a total of over 300 components. One of them being the flash drive, which we are currently preparing the schematics for. We are also processing the assembly video and editing the build instructions.

All of that to say, while we could attempt to start shipping this week, we prefer to improve our chances of delivering a complete and successful kit by postponing start of kit shipment to January. We are sorry that Santa Claus won't deliver your kit (or unit) this year.

We hope you have a happy and safe holiday and appreciate your continued patience.

See you in 2025!

Marc & James 
 

November Progress Update
over 1 year ago – Fri, Nov 15, 2024 at 10:14:25 AM

While we were hoping that kit shipment would already have started by now, we are getting much closer! We now anticipate Kit shipments will start in December and we may even have 2 Assembled and Tested FullMonty Open Antikythera to ship before Christmas. We are hoping that the Thanksgiving holiday will not delay our fulfillment.

Here is where we are today:

We have been very busy with our 100 Watt Laser cutting and inspecting each set of 62 Gears for each FullMonty Kit. Done.

All of the cardboard layers for the Kits packing have been cut by our 60 Watt Laser and glued into numbered trays. Done.

All of the 3D Printed parts have been printed and inventoried. Done.

Most of the Axles, Rods and Dowels are milled (approximately “only” 300 more to do), but we have not bagged (sealed) any of the FullMonty Axle Sets yet or any Bearings/Screws Sets to go into kits, except a prototype test. ToDo.

It doesn't look like our Kickstarter supported Rownd CNC Mill will arrive soon so we will end up doing every single Axles, Rods & Dowels by hand. Gosh!

Clear Acrylic plates (Front, Back, Mechanical) are now in full production. The Front and Back panels alone each take over 2 hours to Laser engrave/cut.

Assembly Instructions are not complete yet but are progressing. ToDo.

We were hoping we could finish our documentation before starting kit shipments, but some of you seem impatient, so we will do our best to deliver. ...but some components, like documentation may/will have to arrive later. #OnlySoManyHoursInADay

We are currently going through all CAD Drawings and spreadsheets to load the included USB Flash Drive to provide helpful documentation for your assembly process.

We are very grateful for the patience that most of our backers have and intend to deliver a product that everyone will be proud to own.

Till next month,

- James & Marc