New Product: Start Clock

October 19, 2020
New Product: Start Clock

The O-Store family is very excited about a project we did during the pandemic: an orienteering clock! The o-clock has all the features of a regular race clock plus the universally recognizable orienteering beeps!  Our clock is great for use as either a start clock or a finish line clock at all your events.  And of course a clock with all the start beeps is particularly valuable at any championship event. As organizers and participants ourselves, we’ve tried to incorporate in our clock all the features that we would want to have available. Here are some details:

Display

  • Size: 34 x 8 cm
  • Each digit is 11 x 16 LEDs
  • Adjustable brightness, with 5 settings
  • Red LEDs
  • Excellent visibility from large angles of centre, readable in direct sunlight
  • High-accuracy, temperature-compensated internal clock

Case

  • Size: 46 x 20 x 13 cm
  • Weight: 3.6 kg, including battery
  • Aluminum handles for easy carrying; doubles for hanging the clock
  • Multiple set-up options including,: stable on a flat surface; hangs easily using straps through handles either left to right or back to front (through the hollow handlebars); sits nicely on a tripod using tripod mount on base of case
  • Case has no parts sticking out, no pieces to cause damage or get damaged during transportation
  • Battery pocket at back of case makes inserting and removing the battery an easy task
  • Case is water resistant, but should have tarp above it if being used in significant rain
  • 12 key numeric keypad for easy programming of all modes
  • Built-in, waterproof speaker allows ample volume for beeps to be heard throughout the starting arena of your race
 

Power

  • Rechargeable battery and charger included
  • Battery life: 8 hours at regular brightness with beeps
 

Modes and Command Codes

  • Count Up or Count Down modes; count down mode can stop after reaching 0 or can begin counting up
  • Numerous beeper options include
    • Intervals of 60, 30, 15, or 10 seconds
    • One beep per interval or "O-beeps" (10 second warning beep, followed by leadup beeps (optional number) and, longer beep on the interval)

 

Click image to enlarge

Now that you know a little bit about the clock, we hope you'll invest in one for your club or event and let us know what you think of it! We are always open to feedback and are looking forward to continuing the development and improvement of this passion project.  

If you're interested, read on for a little bit of behind the scenes/making of!

The R&D Process

This project has been on our minds for a long while and the COVID-19 lockdown provided the perfect opportunity to spend some quality time with it.  We now had the chance to delve in and start building.  

Our home office white board was perfect for drawing out our design ideas.
Here's a few more early drawings.  These were our ideas for the battery case.
We tested various possibilities for the display and software design.  Here you see the time display on two panels.  We decided to add another panel, allowing us to increase the size of each digit.
We used one of our favourite toys in the basement, the CNC router, to create the front of the case.
Here you see the three panels and larger digits with the front of the case for a better sense of what it would eventually look like.
Even during breaks we couldn't stop thinking about the readability of our clock wink
Even once we had the design it took several attempts to perfect the battery case.

Here's an early pre-assembly of the clock case.