Tiny Video Display In A Matchbox!

Tiny Circuit Tiny TV in vintage cardboard matchbox

I bought these brilliant Tiny TV circuit components years ago and pinned it to my wall in hopes of finding a technically-minded person who could figure out how to put it together to get a working micro mini video display. It was a possible candidate for the final form of the finished Halfland scenes to appear inside an amber glass bottle (experiments with that concept in upcoming post). I don't think this thumbnail-sized screen would be large enough for that application, so I built a chassis around it to slide inside a vintage cardboard matchbox Constance had given me, just for fun.

My jaw dropped open and stayed that way when I first saw and heard the Tiny TV kick on and display its pre-loaded set of video clips. It was beyond a thrill. I fiendishly wanted to buy a ton of them immediately in my excitement. But, while worth the $50 price, they are a bit costly for me to spend on, especially without a genuine purpose.

The TV has a regular USB charging port (my red cable seen plugged in above), and a tiny microSD card to play the clips it comes with or... LOAD YOUR OWN! From favorite video moments or full-length movies, up to five hours of your own videos, and even change channels (if you buy the kit that includes a tiny remote!) I was able to convert a short clip of my absolute favorite stop motion clip of all time (it's of a little bug preening a sprig of grass shot outside in a garden by Christina E. Spangler not available online but featured in the top image  EDIT:: FOUND  IT! second clip down on her moving image page, so great!) on to the microSD via an adapter they provide, and it was thrills galore all over again when that clip successfully played on this little gem.

Eventually, finished Halfland clips, complete with their soundtracks, could indeed be loaded onto it in the same way, just for the fun of it. I had to use layers of fresnel lenses to distort the perfect image a bit, and create a convex curved top screen by softening a piece of food packaging in hot water and forming it around a buck shape I made using a duplicate TV cut out (white blob of my now go-to shaping material, floam, wrapped in plastic wrap to create the buck seen far right lower image in clips to make the just right shape). 

I had to engineer where to place the components so they function and also keep the port, card slot, and buttons easily accessible to operate with a little wooden stick. And because I wanted the matchbox drawer to open only to the left edge of the TV chassis, I puzzled over how to make a stop like a mold key, with a divot in a wooden bar on the bottom and a metal ball inside the roof of the sleeve. (Paul came up with the solution from observing how the locks work on his tea tins. I never would have ever noticed these tiny mechanisms on tea tins, but he thankfully did.)

Made little decorative knobs on the TV for the full effect. Glad I made this little art piece, very glad I got brave out of nowhere and tried to put the TV together, a completely foreign victory for me. But mostly I'm glad my questions about how I could build this got answered in the doing of it so I can be finished with it.

This is an example of what I call a project being Illegally Fun. Something completely off-book and, in a sense, pointless yet incredibly captivating and engrossing. It's like I can't do or think of much else until it's all the way done or dropped in failure. How would you build a tiny TV inside a vintage matchbox? That's answered for me now as a curious object.

PS: By sheer coincidence, Tiny Circuits are announcing a product launch on October 18 that they are producing a Tiny TV 2 and an even smaller micro TV, both of which I suspect will no longer require converting the clips or loading via any SD card. The first backers will be getting a nicer price of $29 too, in case you've got to try them out for yourself!

10/20/22 UPDATE! (PS: Not sponsored)

Over $75,000 raised in the first 48 hours!