Rotary phone timer
By Ben Everard. Posted
Speak to anyone who’s had a go at upcycling old electronics and they’ll tell you that older is better. The devices were built to last in the days before planned obsolesce, so if you decide to reincorporate original components, there’s a good chance that they’ll still work. The cases are put together with screws, nuts, and bolts, meaning you can get into the innards without destroying anything, as you would if they were glued together. And anything built before the 1970s – when microchips first made their way into consumer electronics – will necessarily be bigger in order to house the chunky old electronics components used at the time.
This old phone had already been upcycled by a previous owner before Scott-28 got his hands on it, converting a hand-crank phone into a rotary phone. Now Scott-28 has put an Arduino in it and turned it into a kitchen timer. He didn’t want to mess too much with the vintage aesthetic, so he opted for a red seven-segment display, a big, heavy power switch, red status lights, and hand-stamped brass labels.
