swmand4

I started writing some of the MCU code, just basic initialization stuff and getting the RTOS working. It tends to help iron out any bugs in the hardware when you have to verify a certain pin can actually do the thing you want it to. I've decided to add a 20MHz external crystal oscillator to the ATMega328P. This way it will run faster and I can actually use USART to debug. The POS internal oscillator has a +/- 10% tolerance, which simply will not work for USART. SPI and I2C would work even on the internal RC oscillator, but this solution works better. It also has the added benefit of tighter control over the PWM signals for the motor and super bright LEDs. To accommodate the oscillator, I had to move some functionality around to free up the required XTAL pins. Now the drivers for the LED counter bars and the green barrel propagation LEDs are daisy chained. Data flows into the LED Bars driver, out of the LED bars driver, and into the green barrel LEDs driver. Still allows me to leave off the green driver if I want to. Received my DVH E-11 kit as well. Once I figure out how to drill my barrel, I'll be starting that as well. Have to have something to put these electronics in. Oh, and the barrel is clear acrylic tubing, so you can see the electronics and how it all fits together inside. At least before I paint it. This thing is starting to come together nicely.

Sure thing, Jesse. From what I've been able to tell from screen captures, I probably should have trimmed it back even more to be screen accurate. However, where it is now I can get my hand through and it comes back just the right amount to my elbow. Unfortunately, I did not account for my right hand being larger than my left so it's a bit tight on that side. I may have to sand the whole right wrist down to make it comfortable. The left side is perfect, though Hope that helps!

I appreciate the assistance in the search, Chris. I don't think I can go any larger than 30mm, but any rechargeable 7.2V Li-Ion/Li-Polymer battery should work fine with this setup. So if someone else were to put my electronics in their blaster, they could use one of the packs you linked to and place it somewhere other than the magazine. I wonder if the added weight out the side of the blaster will affect how it feels when held? I also just heard back from a battery manufacturer regarding a custom sized pack. They can do it, but it would cost more than the electronics themselves to produce and test. Not surprising. Guess I'm sticking with the original 7.2V 14500 or 14430 cell pack. Saves me some redesign time I'm also concerned about shipping regulations regarding Li-Ion batteries; if I made a kit of these electronics, I don't know that I could ship it via air freight. Something to look in to. What this effectively means is that I'm ready to order parts for PCB pad and size testing

Thanks for the tip. I didn't think a quick wave of a lighter would char it that much. You can also tell the one in the foreground is my second attempt as the bends are sharper and less plastic is melted on the edges. I have more scrap so I might give it another go.

While the forearms are drying, I shaped the bicep hooks from a piece of scrap material. I will attach them once I've done some more test fitting and strapping. Charred and crispy Final after sanding and shaping

30mm width X 18mm height. Possibly two 14500 Li-Ion cells in parallel could fit. If the pack the company comes up with costs too much, I'll end up going with this off the shelf one. And thanks, Chris, for the link to the Arduino SD card library. There's some good stuff there that should help me figure it out.

I opted to cut a little at a time off the forearms, starting with just the return edge. I trimmed a bit more each time until I could squeeze my hand through with relative ease and still get the glove on. Looks like the forearm goes on first, followed by the glove on account of the hand guard. As it turns out, I didn't need to trim as much as I thought. And it looks alright, so I hope it's EIB/Centurion acceptable. More pictures to come once the other inner strip and cover strips have been glued.

I'm at a bit of a stand-still until I figure out what I'm doing battery-wise. I'm talking with a battery manufacturer to see if they can come up with a cost-effective pack that will fit inside the magazine. If they can, it will be a 3.6V Li-Ion battery pack with ~2000mAhr capacity. Or so I'm told - I'll know more in the next few days. Using this voltage battery would require a boost regulator to power the super-bright LED. Not impossible to add to the design, but the board isn't currently set up for it and would require some redesign. In the mean time, I did some test fits. Sorry for the last blurry picture. Getting close now! Once the final battery is selected, I'll be ready to order parts and test part fit. Then it's on to ordering the PCB and assembling the first prototype!

I'm not sure what you mean by this, Lee. I'm actually quite confused as to how to close up the shins. Do I cut half the overlap off each side like the front, and glue a coverstrip on to only one side (the outside "flap")? How do the velcro hooks work? I saw something like it in the costume reference photos, and have seen references to them in other threads, but don't know much... As for forearms, here is a pre-trim photo. The overlaps have not been cut down yet. I'm not sure how much of the return edge needs to be taken off, but all of the screen used costume photos I can find show it to "about" where I've drawn a line in pencil. This is just to the edge of the raised portion. Thoughts on trimming it that far back?

This is what I was thinking of doing for my DVH E-11 build. Seeing the diagonal rod through the stock holes would look closer to the real thing, wouldn't it?

Prepare For Photogeddon I've made major progress in the last week or so. The hardware is almost finished and initial part selection has been completed. Good news is the price is coming in at moderately reasonable at quantities of 25. Bad news is there are a lot of wires I'd have to crimp myself, if I choose to go that route. I could always provide the material unfinished (wires cut to length and stripped) and say, "you go crimp 85 wires for your board." I would have used flat flex cables everywhere as they're easier to use and take less time to install, but I want the board to be flexible. FFC's would prevent someone from installing through-hole barrel LEDs in the vent holes. The only thing I'm still undecided about is the power switch. I've seen it as a slide switch on the board and a toggle switch in lieu of a charging handle. I thought maybe I could use the screw cover (?) next to the selector switch on the handle as a placement for a plunger switch. I'll order a few possible parts and see if anything fits. As the connector is a plug on the board, there are a lot of options. I managed to jam another LED driver on the board without increasing the size of the overall board. Now the barrel propagation effect supports full RGB color! The drivers I use are designed for common anode use, so if you choose to use discrete LEDs in the barrel vent holes they will need to have the positive sides connected together. I had to move the trigger connector to route some traces, but I like where it is better since it's away from fast switching traces. Less noise in the ADC line that way. The inner barrel board uses 9 RGB LEDs. I wanted through-hole LEDs and cutouts to better diffuse light in the tube, but this should work just as well. I'm currently planning on using an 8" long 5/8" OD acrylic tube with windows frost for the inner barrel. I roughly measured the spacing of the vent holes and guesstimated the distance from the front of the PCB. It doesn't really matter with a diffuser, but I will almost certainly adjust the placement of the RGB LED modules before calling it done. I couldn't find a reliable supplier of the RGB modules for the end of the barrel, so I created my own. It's costs about twice as much ($6.50), but it uses less power, has brighter LEDs, and should fit snuggly in the barrel. I designed it so wires could be attached in two places. If the inner barrel diffuser and PCB is used, the wires can be contained inside there and kept out of view. If the inner barrel and PCB is not used, the wires can be plugged into the provided sockets. You could also use the inner barrel diffuser and keep the wires on the outside - might look more futuristic to have wires visible in the barrel... The counter box hasn't changed very much since I first posted it, but I'll add it again to make a post that has everything in one place Even though the schematics have changed a bit since they were initially posted, that would be another 9 giant images so I'll hold off for now. I'm also leaving out the inner planes. Comments and suggestions are welcome. I'm still trying to find a name better than "The Pew-Pew Maker."

How useful would it be to have a green barrel propagation effect? The high intensity LED at the front of the barrel can produce green light and the barrel can, at the moment, only do blue and red. Before I go too much further, I can revise and elongate the design to add green barrel LEDs. My thinking here is that the electronics can be used for Star Wars weapons other than an E-11... Are there even Star Wars weapons that fire green lasers?

That's why I'm going for a flexible design. Don't like the inner barrel idea? Mount your own LEDs and plug them into the provided terminals. Also, it's a frosted opaque tube (not clear). Although, I did have to shift a bunch of stuff for the counter box out to the box itself. Keeps the FFC connector down to a reasonable size, but basically limits compatible electronics to only mine. Oh well.

That would provide maximum flexibility, but would also increase cost and physical space. I'm using an MP3 decoder chip that directly drives speakers, so there's no need for a sound amplifier section. Though I don't know how loud it can go so this may change in the future. There will be three boards - one for main electronics, one for the counter box, and one for the barrel LEDs. I may eliminate the barrel LED board to save cost. I may also create my own 3W RGB high intensity LED board. My personal plan is have an inner barrel visible that contains the LEDs for the propagation effect. The inner barrel will be frosted acrylic tubing with an OD of 5/8". The frosted finish should diffuse the LED light to even it out and help make it look like the bolt is traveling through the inner barrel. This also emits light from the entire barrel, not just a single line of vent holes. You should be able to see some color around the t-track. I'm also placing a vibration motor in the main barrel for force feedback. So my main barrel stuffing plan goes in this order, from back to front: electronics, speaker, vibration motor, inner barrel with LEDs, super-bright RGB LEDs. I'll post a diagram as I make more progress. The batteries will be mounted in the clip and mag well. Is there really enough space in the handle for more batteries? This is just the way I've decided to do it; the board has enough flexibility to allow the electronics to be in the front and to use discrete LEDs in the vent holes if you so choose. The board has a barrel power connector and 8.4V Li-Ion charge controller for external charging at 12VDC. I'm not happy at the moment that you have to open the end cap to charge the battery, but I don't think there's any way to incorporate a power plug on the outside of the blaster. This also means a very particular kind of battery must be used with the system (7.2V Li-Ion battery). I'm planning on using a 7.2V 650mAHr battery that fits in the magazine, but that is again flexible. It could be a physically larger 7.2V 2500mAHr battery placed in the barrel. Thanks for the comments and suggestions! Keep 'em coming

I ran into a bit of a snag... turns out I used the inner diameter of a real Sterling L2A3 as my basis for how much room I have to work with. As a result, the board is too big (1.3") to fit inside PVC pipe builds with a 1.25" ID. I'll have to go back and modify a lot of things to shrink the board down to ~1.2". It's doable, but frustrating nonetheless.

For closing the shins in the back, I'm thinking of keeping the RT-MOD overlap and putting white velcro between the raised sections... would this be acceptable for EIB/Cent.? I'm not sure how else I would keep the same sizing... I suppose I could again cut about half of each overlap off and glue the coverstrip to one side only (outside, I think), then apply half velcro to unglued side. Would this look and work better?

I should have mentioned that the picture in my last post is the backside of the left bicep. I plan to repeat the shin armor process, cut half the overlap from each side on the front and butt joint them, then cut whatever else is required from the back.

Craig, I'm using the coverstrip sizes that Lee claims Rob himself recommended. If the coverstrips are suppose to be the same size on every armor part, it might be a bit late now that I've cut all the strips. I don't think I will have any trouble getting into the armor - if anything, I'll be cutting parts down. Time to start the biceps! I did a bit of test fitting while wearing the compression top and the biceps look big. I couldn't take a picture as I was holding up the armor piece at the time. I did, however, mark a line where I'm thinking of cutting the left bicep. It's apporximatly the width of two coverstrips/overlaps. If I take off the overlap raised portions of both sides and butt the edges together and coverstrip the seam I think it'll be real nice.

I'm starting to consider options for the barrel propagation effect. The easiest and cheapest to implement would be LEDs mounted in the exposed vent holes. I want something that looks better. What I'm thinking is something like the blade. How cool would it be to have an inner barrel that's close to the correct diameter AND lights up to simulate a bolt passing through the barrel? If I can find a tube with the correct outer diameter and LED diffusing film/spray/whatever I could construct an LED circuit board to put inside it. This way, the colored light emanates from all sides instead of just one line of vent holes and you get the inner barrel. The electronics board that would go inside the tube would basically be a scaffolding with cutouts where the LEDs would be mounted. I wanted to post a picture of this that I saw while looking at lightsabers, but for the life of me, I cannot find it again EDIT: Can any confirm the real diameter of the inner barrel? I found something floating around the forum that looks like 15.8mm might be correct and 5/8" is really close.

There's also McMaster-Carr if you're willing to buy a $5 package of 100 of them...

I've made quite a bit of progress on the hardware. I discovered a labeling issue with the batteries in the schematic for the main board. I had multiple names for the same net so none of them were connected correctly. Fixing the layout required rotating a few things around and completely overhauling the inner power plane. It should be fine now. I added two holes down the center for possible mounting with a #2 screw. I'm not sure how the board would be mounted to a circular surface, but the option is there nonetheless. I've been trying to come up with a name for this thing, something that rivals the ring of Blastercore. Unfortunately, all I've come up with is "The Pew-Pew Maker". Suggestions are welcome The counter box LED board is more or less finished. I did my best to match the look and placement of a real Hengstler... If someone has the dimensions and part placements of the real deal, maybe I can make it a bit more accurate. I also added the blue power LED to the front (facing the same direction as the 10-segment LED bars). Hopefully this is acceptable. Any thoughts on the power LED placement? A 7-pin flat flex cable will connect the counter board to the main board. The connector is facing backwards into the box to make routing the cable easier. If you look at the cross-section below, the board is designed to have a faceplate put over it to make the LED bars flush with the surface. Thus, the power status LED and the configuration button stick up and off the faceplate a bit. There is a hole for a #2 mounting screw at each corner. These can be used for attaching the faceplate or attaching the board to the Hengstler box or both. The board is 1.75" (44.45mm) by 0.75" (19.05mm). Real Hengstler 400 counter box (photo from stormtrooperguy.com): Part placement: Front: Back: Cross section:

Glued the coverstrip on the first shin this morning. Looks like a bit more of the overlap could have been take away, but I'm okay with how it looks. Guess I used a touch too much E-6000. I think I can clean up whatever squeezed out the sides relatively easy, as the glue is gummy even when dry. Anyone else had this happen or am I just glue happy?

Okay, I started gluing with the 10mm excess strips. I'm doing the inside strip first then the cover strip 24 hours later. Those magnets really do jump around! I learned a very important (and painful) lesson: apply magnets from the middle of the armor out.

Finally took the plunge and started assembling this thing! I started with the shins since they are fairly isolated from the rest of the armor - their fit and positioning do not depend on another piece of armor. I'm also fairly certain I will not need to trim them very much. Cut my cover strips - 15mm for forearms and biceps, 23mm for thighs, and 20mm for shins. It now dawns on me I forgot to cut the strips for the biceps... The rounded/angled edges will be done later. Drew the cut line: Cutting was easier than I expected. The first shin half was a bit shaky and will need a lot of sanding to make it right, but the rest were pretty straight. A test fit with the 20mm coverstrip. I think I could have taken a bit more off the overlap... I'll post another picture without tape before I glue anything. After seeing for myself how thin the 10mm excess material is, I don't think it will be sturdy enough to use as inner strips. I'm going to see if a local hardware store has sheets of white ABS for the inner coverstrips.

Thanks, Manuel. It's actually a coincidence that the MCUs are the same. I've been a fan of the ATMEGA328P for a while and tend to favor it for electronics projects. Unfortunately, the code will not be the same. This is not an Arduino project and therefore uses different libraries and a different compiler. I'll be using AVR Studio 5 with a GNU C compiler and Free RTOS. Still researching free libraries and how to read data from an SD card... If you've posted the code for your Arduino based sound board, I might want to borrow certain elements of it (with your permission, of course). Or at least use it to help give me ideas when I write my own version.