Figural Digital Clocks

Figural phone and webcam holder, in the shape of an Iron Bird

Cast iron Kiwi bird, heavy and stable, with detachable generic plastic phone holder that can be replaced with a webcam using the standard screw.

Used here to hold an old phone to make a decorative digital clock, running the free Android app Giant Clock by Bojan Kogoj (alternatives are Jumbo Clock by Astonish Inc. and Day and Night Clock by Stefan Fruhner, which can dim on low light). Phone is not included.

Great Seals of the Realm: 73 alternating images in a spherical case

Invited to King Charles' place for dinner and have no gift? Search no more! A LCD round display in a spherical case, displaying randomly changing images of the Great Seals of the Kings and Queens of England from 1003 (Edward the Confessor) to 1760 (George II).

Each of the 73 images include the name of the monarch portrayed and the years of his reign. The case is printed in polished nylon for a rough touch and has a mate black finish.

Your family photos alternating in a Juliana or De Caprio figural clock

Those resin English Juliana and De Caprio clocks are set with a round screen and a small computer to replace their dial and mechanism, and can display a randomly alternating pictures of your choice: your family photos, your favorite artist's paintings and so on. By default, they will arrive with a selection of paintings by Picasso.

Other pictures should be provided by you and can not be replaced later, unless you are willing to risk damaging the clock to get to the memory card in it, or have a basic knowledge in networks (you will have to change your WiFi's name and password, figure out the IP your router's DHCP assigned to the little Pi Zero inside, and then you can manage it with RealVNC, mount a shared folder from your computer and upload new images. You'll also have to hope I'm still alive and well, and can provide you with the required passwords). Why do all that? Just buy another!

Two versions are available at the moment: "Lucie reads a book" and "Julie plays the lute".

Do It Yourself

To assemble those displays, I used HyperPixel 2.1 Round screen with Raspberry Pi Zero 2 WH (with pre-soldered headers), running Raspbian with the necessary display drivers. I cancelled the splash screen, hid the cursor using unclutter, set my logo as the desktop background and moved the desktop icons out of view. If you are using Pi Zero 2 like I did, note this configuration remark.

The cases I used were designed by printminion: the Sphere Enclosure (M3O1) and the Wall-Mount Enclosure (M3+W1) which fits perfectly to replace the cheap mechanism of the Juliana clocks (I used Blender to close the holes on the back). Since I don't own a 3D Printer, I ordered the spherical case in nylon and the other one in resin from Craftcloud.

My source for the graphics was the 1003-1760 Coins, Medals and Seals of England by Herbert Booker, and I edited them using GIMP. To display the images in random order, I used glslideshow, an extra screensaver of Xscreensaver.

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