Anyone familiar with The Simpsons can instantly envision the titular family’s iconic TV. After all, purple TV sets don’t come around every day, especially not ones with wavy antennae. But soon, fans may be able to pluck this TV right out of the screen. In news we first saw on The Verge, Redditor bubba447 has designed and 3D printed a working mini replica of The Simpsons’ iconic TV. Knobs and all!
This mini meta-television is the real deal. It plays the first 11 seasons of the show at random; no internet necessary. There’s even volume control! This is definitely one mini Homer would drool over.
From a tech perspective, creator bubba447 has this to share about the replica:
Inside is a raspberry pi zero with a 32gb and card. The pi is connected to a 640×480 tft display.
The Pi is running Jessie Lite. The episodes were all compressed specifically for the screen and loaded onto the SD card. When the pi is powered up, through the USB port on the back of the tv, it starts playing episodes at random. When on episode ends the next is randomly selected. The top button is wired up to GPIO and turns the screen on and off while also muting the volume. The bottom is a POT that is connected to the speaker inside.
I designed the TV and parts in Fusion 360 and printed on an ender 3 pro.
When it comes to randomizing episodes, the creator shared they wanted to have an authentic “‘always on’ TV experience.” So the episodes are randomized with a Python script and “just constantly play… The GPIO input only turns the screen on and off.”
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That’s a lot of tech-talk, but for those in the know, it could mean their very own Simpsons TV very soon. Bubba447 is currently working on a guide to their creation.
3D printing allows for many cool innovations and the nerdy ones are always a lot of fun to see!