Square Sunclock - Northern Hemisphere - Fixed Customizer

thingiverse

FIXED! The Customizer REALLY didn't like the line of numbers as strings, and stripped them out, so the numbers didn't appear on the dial! I've done a work around, and added Roman Numerals to get it working again. Heavily influenced by "Customizable Sundial" by doctek Feb 17, 2013, you can find it at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:51183. I wanted a square version of doctek's clock, so I created one and here it is to share with all! My sundial only works in the Northern hemisphere because sundials don't work well in the Southern hemisphere where the "clock" runs backwards, anti-clockwise. To get an accurate time, you need to adjust the sundials numbers' angles and tilt the spike sticking out depending on your location in the North. doctek's written some great instructions for setting up your sundial over there. I found that typing into Google "[location] latitude" works well - for instance "paris latitude", and Google displays at the top - "Paris / Coordinates 48.8566° N, 2.3522° E". You can enter these coordinates right up at the top of the OpenSCAD script. These coordinates give the program what it needs to adjust the numerical dial and the spike so the time is correct. Does it work? I've checked the sundial works from a real one I printed out, along with one I rendered with a program that emulates the sun accurately in different positions across the earth. As you can see in the images - the simulated sun is at its 3 o'clock position in the sky where I live, and my model shows the shadow falling at 3pm. It works for other Northern locations just fine.