Adjustable Sun Dial

Because the discrepancy between the sun stand and our measured time, I created this adjustable sun dial with four rows. It won't be very precise but at least better than a static sun dial.

Each row represents three months. Adjust the tiles while the “middle month” (February, May, August and November).

End of October summer time changes to winter time. So when the tiles are set in November, the shown time for October would be one hour too late. That's why I made the marking +1 next to October to remember that one hour plus must be counted.

Printmaterial / Assembling

For the body and the Gnomon I recommend to use material with higher temperatur resistance than usual PLA, to prevent bending because the longtime exposure to the sun. I used BioTec material which is printed like PLA but can be hardened by putting in the oven at 80°C for 4 hours. Temperatur resistance after this process is around 110°C. I think this should be sufficient.

The Gnomon you can just push into the grooves, it's thight enough, so no glueing necessary.

Also the tiles you can just push over the rail. I used PLA for the tiles and it works so far… I had one PLA which broke immediately when pushing over the rail. So maybe it's better to print the tiles in PETG.

I prepared print files for both PLA and PETG.

Cheers!

27.6.2021-Updated Gnomon V2

I changed the angle to 40° degrees and centered it to have a more appropiate shape of shadow on the rows. Especially for the early and late hours.