Desk Clock (add your own face design)

This is a clock face designed to work with a cheap and readily-available mechanism, with a customisable face design! It can either be stood on a desk or other flat surface, or hung from a wall. It works really well as a thoughtful present for somebody!

Components needed:

1. A clock mechanism. I used this 2 pack for £7: amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08B8X1FN5)
2. Some paint to make the numbers stand out (Tipp-ex works really well if you used a dark coloured filament: www.amazon.co.uk/Tipp-Ex-Shaken-Squeeze-Correction-Pens/dp/B008RTZSY4 
3. Two tiny screws
4. An AA battery

Print and assembly instructions:

1. Choose your design to print (included are hearts or a mountain scape with skis).
2. If you want to stand your clock on a surface rather than hang it from a wall you will also need to print one of the feet pieces.
3. I printed mine in PLA with three top and bottom layers, two perimeters and 8% infill. The main clock face took about 3 hours and the foot took about 20 mins.
4. Print the main clock face down on the bed and the foot piece on its side
5. If you can print the clock face on a glass bed, make sure the bed surface is really clean and the face should come out nice and shiny
6. You may wish to paint the numbers, dots and design on the clock face in a contrasting colour to stand out. It's worth taking your time here!
7. The clock mechanism can then be inserted into the clock face from behind, making sure to insert the hook piece that came with the mechanism if you wish to hang it. The nut can then be screwed on to the shaft from the front.
8. The hands included with the mechanism needed shortening to suit the diameter of the clock face, which was easy to do with a wire cutter and then sand down the exposed sharp edges.
9. If you wish to keep it on a flat surface, screw the foot piece into the main clock piece using two really small screws through the holes provided
10. Insert a single AA battery
11. Voila, you have a finished clock!

How to customise the face design:

1. You will need some free open source softeware that works on macOS and Windows:
   1. Inkscape, a drawing software inkscape.org 
   2. OpenSCAD, a coding based CAD software openscad.org 
2. Find a photo of a design you want. The simpler the better - just an outline of an easily recognisable shape works best.
3. Open Inkscape and import the photo. Use the line drawing tool to trace around the shape you want. It can be helpful to reduce the opacity of the photo. Make sure the outline is fully closed. You can have multiple fully-enclosed outlines if you like.
4. Save the Inkscape file as a .svg file in the same folder as the desk_clock.scad file.
5. Open the desk_clock.scad file. Under where it says **CHANGE TO YOUR DESIGN HERE**, change the name of the .svg file to be imported to match your design.
6. Press the preview button (F5) to check it has worked - you may need to rotate the object view.
7. It is quite likely your design won't be correctly aligned. Change the numbers in square brackets after “translate” to move your design around, after “rotate” to rotate it or after “scale” to change it's size.
8. If you can't get it to work, feel free to messge me in Printables with your design and I will hopefully have time to check it out for you :)
9. Then, when you are happy, render your object (F6), which may take a while, and export as a .3mf file or .stl file (F7).

There are a few improvements I am planing to make when I get time:

1. Increase the font size of the numbers to make them clearer and easier to paint
2. Remove the need for the tiny screws through a 3D printed connection mechanism
3. Add a hook in case the mechanism you purchase doesn't have one included
4. Add a back plate to make it neater from behind

I hope you enjoy this design!