Laser Arm Cannon Scares More Than Metroids

August 30, 2018 by Tom Nardi 5 Comments

There’s an interesting side effect of creating a popular piece of science fiction: if you wait long enough, say 30 or 40 years, there’s a good chance that somebody will manage to knock that pesky “fiction” bit off the end. That’s how we got flip phones that looked like the communicators from Star Trek, and rockets that come in for a landing on a tail of flame. Admittedly it’s a trick that doesn’t always work, but we’re not in the business of betting against sufficiently obsessed nerds either.

Coming in right on schedule 32 years after the release of Metroid on the Nintendo Entertainment System, we now have a functional laser arm cannon as used by the game’s protagonist Samus Aran, courtesy of [Hyper_Ion]. It’s not quite as capable as its video game counterpart, but if your particular corner of the solar system is under assault from black balloons you should be in good shape. Incidentally no word yet on a DIY Power Suit that folds the wearer up into a tiny ball, but no rush on that one.

Modeled after the version of the weapon Samus carried in 2002’s iconic Metroid Prime, [Hyper_Ion] 3D printed the cannon in a number of pieces that screw together in order to achieve the impressive final dimensions. He printed it at 0.3 mm layers to speed up the process, but as you can probably imagine, printing life-size designs like this is not for the faint of heart or short of time. While the use of printed threads does make the design a bit more complex, the fact that the cannon isn’t glued together and can be broken down for maintenance or storage is a huge advantage.

Ever popular NeoPixel strips give the cannon a bit of flash, and a speaker driven by a 2N2222 transistor on an Arduino Nano’s digital pin allows for some rudimentary sound effects with nothing more than a PWM signal. In the video after the break you can see how the lights and sounds serve as a warning system for the laser itself, as the cannon can be seen “charging up” for a few seconds before emitting a beam.

Of course, this is the part of the project that might have some readers recoiling in horror. To provide some real-world punch, [Hyper_Ion] has equipped his arm cannon with a 2.5W 450nm laser module intended for desktop engraving machines. To say this thing is dangerous is probably an understatement, so we wouldn’t blame you if you decided to leave the laser module off your own version. But it certainly looks cool, and as long as you’ve got some proper eye protection there’s (probably) more dangerous things you can do in the privacy of your own home.

Shame this kind of technology wasn’t really practical back when [Ryan Fitzpatrick] made this fantastic Power Suit helmet for a Metroid fan production.

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Building The Terminator’s Arm

July 31, 2018 by Lewin Day 11 Comments

The Cyberdyne Systems Series 800 Terminator is a highly capable robot that happens to look an awful lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger. It boasts an advanced metallic endoskeleton, which has been the inspiration for many DIY prop builds over the years. [KenToonz] has decided to take on just such a project and invites viewers along for the ride. (YouTube, embedded below.)

The project is a particularly interesting one, as it involves the recreation of a robotic imitation of a human hand and arm. Thankfully, due to the hard work of dedicated individuals, blueprints of the original movie item are available online. These aren’t fully functional, per se, but give the aspiring builder a strong basis to get the look and feel right, while leaving room for modifications for those who wish to build something that moves and operates in the expected way. [KenToonz] intends to do exactly that, and contemplates the installation of various springs and other mechanisms to enable the joints to extend and retract properly.

[KenToonz] starts from the fingers, working back towards the forearm before beginning to add the various interstitial pieces that make it all work together as an assembly. The machining involved covers everything from small metal pieces of the digits to producing custom springs for the moving parts. We can’t wait to see the finished product once it’s all finished!

We’ve seen some great prop builds before, too – like this tricorder worthy of Mr Spock.

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Incredible 3D Printed Overwatch Airsoft Pistol

July 30, 2018 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

If you ever needed evidence that gamers are some of the most dedicated individuals in all of fandom, then look no further than this fantastic 3D printed recreation of the “Pulse Pistol” as featured in the immensely popular “Overwatch”. Built by the guys at [Danger Doc], this replica doesn’t just look the part, it’s also a fully functional Airsoft gun. In the detailed build video after the break, the year-long design and construction of the gun is broken down for your viewing pleasure.

Because the end goal was to make something that looked as though it came from the game itself, a lot of time was put into making sure that the externals were faithful to the digital version while still able to contain all the hardware they needed to cram in there. This is a fully auto gun, so it needed a battery and motors, as well as a way to feed the firing mechanism Airsoft BBs that didn’t require an anachronistic magazine sticking out.

They combined a off-the-shelf firing mechanism and high-capacity magazine but it took plenty of custom designed parts to get everything mated up. The magazine has a clockwork mechanism to advance the BBs which required the user to manually crank up, but this was replaced with an electric motor to make things a little more futuristic. In addition to all the LEDs on the body of the gun, there’s also an internal array of ultraviolet SMD LEDs to charge the glow-in-the-dark “tracer” BBs as they move through the magazine. In low light, this gives the shots from the gun something of a laser effect.

We’ve seen 3D printed guns from games before, but rarely with this attention to detail and engineering. Honestly, this even gives some real 3D printed guns a run for their money.

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Bringing Fiction To Life With 3D Printing

April 2, 2018 by Tom Nardi 27 Comments

I print something nearly every day, and over the last few years, I’ve created hundreds of practical items. Parts to repair my car, specialized tools, scientific instruments, the list goes on and on. It’s very difficult for me to imagine going back to a time where I didn’t have the ability to rapidly create and replicate physical objects at home. I can say with complete honesty that it has been an absolutely life-changing technology for me, personally.

But to everyone else in my life, my friends and family, 3D printers are magical boxes which can produce gadgets, weapons, and characters from their favorite games and movies. Nobody wants to see the parts I made to get my girlfriend’s 1980’s Honda back on the road before she had to go to work in the morning, they want to see the Minecraft block I made for my daughter. I can’t get anyone interested in a device I made to detect the algal density of a sample of water, but they all want me to run off a set of the stones from The Fifth Element for them.

As I recently finished just such a project, a 3D printed limpet mine from Battlefield 1, I thought I would share some thoughts on the best practices for turning fiction into non-fiction.

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Iron Man Mask With A HUD!

March 25, 2018 by James Hobson 12 Comments

At some point, a child will inevitably dream of being a superhero. Not all children get the chance to see that dream made manifest, but a few take that destiny into their own hands. Redditor [Lord_of_Bone] — seizing at that goal — has built himself an Iron Man mask with an integrated HUD!

Relying on a conceptually similar project he’d previously built, much of the code was rehashed for this ‘Mark II’ version. Pieces of a smartphone holo pyramid act as projection surfaces — using a lens to focus the image to be viewed at such close distances — and a pair of OLED screens displaying the information. It’s a happy bonus that the lack of backlight results in only the text showing in the user’s field of view.

Instead of speaking with J.A.R.V.I.S., [Lord_of_Bone] is using a Raspberry Pi Zero W as the mask’s brain. Working past some I2C troubles between the OLED screens and an Enviro pHat required a whipped-up veroboard and a bit of hardware hacking. Cramming everything into the mask was no easy task — using Blutack and Sugru to bind them in the limited space — but the pHat had to be surface-mounted in the open anyways for atmospheric and light data.

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Building A Tricorder Prop Worthy Of Mr Spock

March 19, 2018 by Tom Nardi 24 Comments

We’ve all been there. You want to assemble a proper Star Trek: The Original Series landing party prop set, but the TOS tricorders you can find on the market are little more than overpriced toys. Imagine the embarrassment of beaming down to Cestus III with a plastic tricorder. The Metrons wouldn’t have even bothered with the trial by combat with such a sorry showing.

Unhappy with the state of Star Trek props, [Dean O] decided to take matters into his own hands. He purchased a TOS tricorder from Diamond Select Toys and set out to modify it into something a bit closer to Starfleet standards. Anything painted metallic silver on the toy was replaced with a machined aluminum duplicate, adding some much needed heft. He even spruced up the controls and display.

To start, [Dean] stripped the tricorder down, separating all of the silver plastic parts and finding aluminum stock that was close enough to the desired dimensions. This ended up being .125″ plate for the sides, and .500″ bars for the horizontal dividers. To make the side panels he placed the original plastic parts over the aluminum, marked the mounting holes with a punch, and used the belt sander to shape them.

[Dean] then put in a more screen accurate Moire disc, and went as far as to get real watch crowns for the buttons (just like the prop used in the show). In a particularly bold move, he even drilled out the center of watch crowns to install plastic light pipes for LED illumination.

Last year we saw a build that crammed a Raspberry Pi into the same Diamond Select tricorder toy to excellent effect. Now somebody just needs to combine both projects and they’ll have the slickest tricorder in the Alpha Quadrant.

Skull Cane Proves Bondo Isn’t Just For Dents

February 22, 2018 by Tom Nardi 11 Comments

[Eric Strebel] is quickly becoming a favorite here at Hackaday. He’s got a fantastic knack for turning everyday objects into something awesome, and he’s kind of enough to document his builds for the viewing pleasure of hackers and makers everywhere. It also doesn’t hurt that his voice and narration style gives us a real Bob Ross vibe.

The latest “Happy Accident” out of his workshop is a neat light-up cane made from a ceramic skull found at a local store. But while the finished cane itself might not be terribly exciting, the construction methods demonstrated by [Eric] are well worth the price of admission. Rather than using Bondo like the filler we’re all accustomed to, he shows how it can be used to rapidly build free-form structures and components.

After building up layers of Bondo, he uses a cheese grater to smooth out the rough surface and a hobby knife to clean up the edges. According to [Eric], one of the benefits of working with Bondo like this is that it’s very easy to shape and manipulate before it fully hardens; allowing you to really make things up as you go.

[Eric] also shares a little secret about how he makes his gray Bondo: he mixes some of the toner from a laser printer cartridge into it. This allows you to very cheaply augment the color of the filler, and is definitely something to file away for future reference.

If the video below leaves you hungry for more [Eric Strebel], check out his fantastic series on working with foam core, which should lead you right down the rabbit hole to his DIY foam core spray painting booth.

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