The Daily Lava Lamp Clock

Understatement
By Andrew Davidson
on September 27, 2010

When people walk into my office, they often remark that I must love Lava Lamps. I have a 24 Lava Lamp Clock that ticks the hours away each day along one wall of my office.

I recently found myself with another dilemma: telling the days apart. So with a few 'extra' lava lamps I had, I mocked up the Daily Lava Lamp Clock. It changes from one to the next at midnight each night, and runs all day long.

Below is my first pass at the design, with daily labels on each lamp. The labels' are simply printed on a laser printer onto overhead transparency sheets, then taped into cones that sit over each lamp. The tops of the art overlays are hidden by the caps. Below is a picture of all the lamps on. If you'd like, download this 4 page PDF File to print your own daily labels, if you want to repeat this project.

The Brains

Not surprisingly, hidden underneath the 7 lamps is the brains of the unit. It's 7 individual 7-day digital timers plugged into a long power strip. Each timer is set to go on at midnight of each day of the week, and off 24 hours later. Once the time is set on all 7 timers, it' works surprisingly well. Here's the product on BG Micro's website, for only $5.95 each. Below is a picture of the clock in it's working state (obviously taken on a Saturday...) My next project will be to wrap up the power and brains into a better looking package, and tie the whole project together.