[fred friendly]

I need someone to make a clock (with hour hands) turn to a desired time by remote control. The smaller the better for all the parts.
I have the clock.

[Al_The_Man]

I need someone to make a clock (with hour hands) turn to a desired time by remote control. The smaller the better for all the parts.
I have the clock.

Trying to get a bit extra out of the employee's eh.

You could probably do it with two stepper motors, no power supply or anything extra.
One on the clock, one for the remote control, you turn one, it turns the other!
Wire in between.
Al.

[fred friendly]

Needs to be done by remote control in an unseen way.

Ideally the remote would have two banks of buttons, One for the hours and one bank for every 5 minutes(minute hand). Or you could hold a button and it pulses for each hour then when you let up and hold it again, it pulses for every five minutes... then the servos move the hands.

There could be two separate servos driving the hour and the second hands.

- - - -

I can program a CNC with Rhino and Artcam and even a little G &M code but have no idea how to design a little system of my own. I even have a subscription to Servo magazine thinking if I read, I would get smart but I really need someone to make it for me or show me how.

[Al_The_Man]

What I outlined was a basic servo system called a synchro, this has a receiver 'dial' ,the clock, you would have a corresponding remote transmitter dial, for every degree you move the transmitter, the receiver would follow, you would need two transmitters and a concentric receiver, using two motors.
For this method steppers can be used, resolvers or even AC servo motors.
The transmitter dial keeps track of where you are at any given time.
The method you outline could be achieved using more electronics, but unless you get sophisticated, there is no feed back to remember where you actually are, if used remotely.
It depends on how much money you have to throw at it!
Al.

[fred friendly]

That sounds like it may work.

So is it two dials, one for each hand? And how small can I make the transmitter?

[Al_The_Man]

You may be able to use steppers from old hard drives, The smallest transmitter would probably be a resolver, about 1" in dia, but you would need extra electronics for excitation.
Al.

[fgeiser]

I presume this is a practical joke type item?
I'd find an old R/C airplane transmitter and receiver; the servo's can easily be modified for full rotation (google it), then mount one servo on the back of the clock movement so that it actually rotates the entire movement (battery, hands and all).
This would give you very good range (1/4 mile or so) and fairly precise control, though you would have to be watching the clock to set an exact time.
This also wouldn't set the hour and minute hands separately, they would move together.

If this is a more serious item, like a clock that just isn't accessible to set the time, look for an atomic movement; they make them for analog clocks too.