Thrift shops around the globe have cabinets suffering from previous slide projectors and slide viewers, as clear slide know-how is totally out of date now. Don’t consider me? When you handle to discover a movie developer in your space, ask them to make some slides for you and observe the look on their face. And since thousands and thousands upon thousands and thousands of slide viewers had been bought, they aren’t collectible or priceless. Nonetheless, it might be a disgrace if all of them ended up in landfills, which is why Redditor ToBePacific transformed a classic slide viewer right into a usable show.
Normal shopper slide viewers had been very, quite simple gadgets. A light-weight bulb would shine by way of the slide and a magnifying viewing lens would let the person see the enlarged picture. A flowery mannequin may need some type of mechanism for flipping by way of a number of slides.
For this challenge, ToBePacific was actually solely involved with the nifty-looking enclosure and the viewing lens from a Hanimex Vista Viewer II 35mm slide viewer. By placing a small LCD contained in the enclosure on the correct distance from the lens, the contents of the show would present up magnified. The magnification isn’t notably robust, however it does enlarge the show a bit and offers it a singular barely distorted look that has some classic allure.
The LCD is 2”, however ToBePacific wasn’t pacific sufficient to specify particulars just like the mannequin or decision. A Raspberry Pi Zero 2W single-board laptop feeds video to that LCD and it will possibly present every kind of data. ToBePacific programmed a customized script that pulls information from a bunch of various publicly accessible APIs and shows it. Utilizing APIs from NASA, iNaturalist, and extra, it exhibits climate info, asteroid sightings, notable upcoming astronomical occasions, and even little bits of trivia.
The modified slide viewer isn’t obtrusive and appears a lot cooler than one thing like a Fb Portal, so ToBeSpecific can proudly place it on a desk or shelf and take a look at any time when he desires some info.