My ASHPD Testing shall commence in 3, 2, 1

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

To be honest, I'm not quite sure as the film does not say if it's fine matte or matte. I haven't had the option to choose between those two.
If I were you, I would go with the matte but in the end it shouldn't make that big of a difference. But definitely will the thickness of it.

I guess more people will check here if progress is made Same on my FB page!
Ah cr*p, sorry to hear your sound board got damaged. Those aren't that cheap.

The best effect by far on your sketch is at the beginning when first blue circle fills up, then the second and finally the jewel starts to fade in. That's SO BOSS! Love it to bits! :love

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

ThePropBox said:

To be honest, I'm not quite sure as the film does not say if it's fine matte or matte. I haven't had the option to choose between those two.
If I were you, I would go with the matte but in the end it shouldn't make that big of a difference. But definitely will the thickness of it.

I guess more people will check here if progress is made Same on my FB page!
Ah cr*p, sorry to hear your sound board got damaged. Those aren't that cheap.

The best effect by far on your sketch is at the beginning when first blue circle fills up, then the second and finally the jewel starts to fade in. That's SO BOSS! Love it to bits! :love

Click to expand...

I asked for the matte, still waiting for a response. I also asked for the 300 and 500 micron samples. Here's hoping.

I'm bummed about it and it may be able to salvage it. Until then I ordered another with better quality sounds, so it may be a silver lining. I was looking into an Arduino based system, but I would have to rewire, buy a new Arduino as I'm out of pins and out of memory, and I would spend the same money. So this was a no brainer.

Thank you! It means a lot coming from you. I have an idea on changing the idle effect up a bit. I may play with it over the weekend.

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

So it seems I have hit a rather significant snafu.

When I started out on this, I was adamant about two pieces on the rear panel. One master on/off switch and a push button for controlling everything. I always felt that since this was a finished product it wouldn't have a mess of buttons on the back and it would likely be smart enough to know that it needs one portal over another. So one button was all it would need. It also lends itself to this for some of the trickier rooms...but I digress.

The problem is as such, when I first turn it on it should light blue and play the start up sequence right into the idle sequence. For some reason or another, after I added the Arduino, I think this was all coincidence, it would start up in the orange state. This is wrong for a couple of reasons:

1) In order to keep everything straight, I decided early on that the default color will be blue, this way while wiring and such I know which was which without looking.
2)The startup sound does not work properly when it starts in orange.

I tracked the culprit down to my latching relay. After a call to the manufacturer this was in fact proper behavior. It will remain in the last state selected until it is triggered to change again. Seeming this is the nature of the beast, it has forced me to convert over to Arduino completely. This isn't my desired route as I was on my way out of the barrel section into the next phase, but I am now here until I complete the conversion. This will at least simplify things in the long run and will give me the opportunity to add a few new visual effects too, but will ultimately delay me for a while, especially since riding season is fast approaching.

I will need to figure out how to expand my code accordingly and I will need to tweak my current code as this forces me to move from the Trinket to the Uno. Not a huge deal as I will be saving space on all the boards I am jettisoning.

Nevertheless, I appreciate anyone still tagging along on this build with me.

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

As expected this has taken a back burner for a while. I have picked at it here and there when I have had time. I have spent my time on it writing a new sketch that was just for sound control. I had run out of necessary pins on the uno and added a second Arduino that will receive serial bytes from the uno to trigger sound. In all this, my timer circuit for my outer most ring went up in smoke, figuratively speaking. I went ahead and etched a pcb instead of using the perf boards and populated it. It was still giving me fits. Then the wiring I used, solid core, started breaking on the same LED ring. So I replaced all of them with a stranded wire. I decided at that point to write a sketch to run that board and offload all of that to the secondary Arduino and leave sound on the main board.

That sketch nearly put the nail in the coffin. There was nothing but timing issues with it. I would get one part sorted and another would come apart. So I did the only sensible thing, looked for a better alternative. I finally came upon single board mounted Neopixels. This was a much better idea than what I was using. All I needed to do was add the calls to my sketch and wire it. It actually went off without a hitch. This allowed me to get rid of the second Arduino and go back to a single one.

Then back to sound control. This isn't going as easy as I had expected. I haven't had much success but I will add some pictures asap. Maybe a video. Let me organize them.

Thanks for looking.

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

Less words more pics



I started with some board mounted individual Neopixels. These are the smallest I found. They come with the resistor and cap already soldered to the board. So it's a solder and go. Three wires. I cut a ring that represents the diameter for the acrylic tube they will be shining up through.



Now one that I had the ring diameter I held them together with some packing tape until I can get them soldered together.



Started the ground wiring.



Grounds complete.



Beginning the power and signal.



Halfway there



Wiring complete.

I did it this way so I can have some flexibility in order to fit it into the barrel after all my testing is done.

And some updated video.

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

Looks slick man! Glad to see you back at it

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

Fishbowl said:

Looks slick man! Glad to see you back at it

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Thanks man! I really appreciate that. I going to try and focus a little more on the mechanical so I can get somewhere and actually have updates to post. I'm going to pick at the code but I'm not that proficient in it so it's taking time to get it done and there's plenty to do.

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

Small update.


Lets start here. My friend was kind enough to fashion me some barrels from delrin. These were done on a homemade lathe that was built by a friends father before he passed. He said it was literally falling apart as he neared the end. It has gone to a better place. The one on the left is the one I use to test the mechanics of my build. If I want to test how something will fit or cut I do it to this one. The interior dimensions are all exactly the same and that's where it counts for this. The middle one is my test barrel. It's a pretty good cut but he did gouge the piece near the end and had to bring the bottom bevel further down to compensate. The one on the right will be the final piece that will end up on the prop. So I have two to test with.



I forgot to take a before pic of the interior so here is one for reference on another barrel.


I need the Neopixels to aligns with the acrylic tube I'm using. With the wiring and the board I needed to recess them a bit. So I cut a groove into the wall.



After some trial and and error I got them in there. I will likely use a mechanical means to secure them in the final version. But this will work for now.



And a quick video of it in action. This is of course not the assembled version. I still have the sleeve to put in, the diffusing layer and maybe another cosmetic layer.



Thanks again for looking.

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

I started testing mounting for the barrel to what I'm calling the chamber of the gun. Being as a good amount of electronics are in this, I wanted to leave one form of servicibility to it in case I need to replace something later on. Here's what I am currently testing. I need a small piece before I'll know is this will work long term, but as of now it is looking as a viable solution.

I ordered the appropriate sized forstner bits for this a while ago. The indent closer to the edge of the piece is what we're looking at. The one in the lower corner of the pic is from the lathe. First cut is a recess for a washer.






I then cut a smaller hole in the center to house a spring.





The spring will compress into the hole. It fits all the way it's hard to compress and grab a pic.


Tapped it out (thank god Delrin is highly machinable) and hardware installed.




Sorry about the sideways pictures. I will try and go back to fix them as soon as I can.

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

This is obviously not the material I am going to use. It's just to illustrate the idea I had easily.







So it should act like a quarter turn lock. I need to figure out how the wiring will route next. Thanks for looking.

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

I could watch those test videos all day. So hypnotic!

I love the fact that I understand so little of what you're explaining. I know what an Arduino is. I vaguely understand about timing. It's like a river of words flowing by, with one occasionally leaping out of the stream to wave, then diving back in. Glorious!

(This week I have two battery powered LED tea lights on my workbench. I'm vaguely thinking of wiring them together so you can switch them both on at one switch. This operation is just slightly beyond the outer limits of my electronic tech knowledge. Thus I watch your video like a Neanderthal being shown the Apollo rocket specs.)

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

Dtrasler said:

I could watch those test videos all day. So hypnotic!

I love the fact that I understand so little of what you're explaining. I know what an Arduino is. I vaguely understand about timing. It's like a river of words flowing by, with one occasionally leaping out of the stream to wave, then diving back in. Glorious!

(This week I have two battery powered LED tea lights on my workbench. I'm vaguely thinking of wiring them together so you can switch them both on at one switch. This operation is just slightly beyond the outer limits of my electronic tech knowledge. Thus I watch your video like a Neanderthal being shown the Apollo rocket specs.)

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Thanks for the kind words. If it makes you feel better, I'm only dipping my toes into the pool of micro controllers. I avoided it at the beginning of the project because programming and I have an agreement, we hate each other. After traditional electronics proved to be too costly to achieve the desired effect I had no choice, but to figure it out. We still hate each other, instead of threatening each other we cast dirty glares instead. @Thepropbox and @xl97 were pretty instrumental in getting me this far.

While i never officially studied electronics, I have a decent enough grasp on the basics to get me through most projects. Those items I can't easily do, I research. A lot. Then spend a ton on components for testing. I am always learning though which is a huge part of it for me. I'm hoping to have another update on this soon.

Re: My ASHPD Please look directly into the operational end of the device PICS ADDED

It has been a while since I updated this post. I got busy traveling and working on the house. The thread didn't seem to generate a lot of interest either so, I never really got around to it. There has been some decent progress since last year, all in the last few months. I finally finished writing my sketch and in order to do this I needed to make some hardware decisions. I ended up on my final hardware iteration, after about a dozen different setups since the beginning. I have made a full swing from analog to completely solid state and digital. I could bore you with all the details and bore you even more with a ton of pictures No problem one wants to see. Unless you do, then I can post some others up. For the most part, here is where I am at:



This is everything in a disassembled state. The electronics are all rough wired in and I am working towards the finish work for that currently. While I was doing that I decided to go ahead and assemble all the pieces to see how it is looking. It turns out the chamber housing is too long, so I need to rebuild it and then I can move forward with new work. A good portion of the rough work is complete. Once I am happy with the way it all fits and looks, I will move onto the detail work. Its all about fit for me right now.

I will add a video of the final electronics test showing everything it will do when complete. It has a startup sequence, what I refer to as an idle state, color change on a single button press with sound, a shutdown sequence, and I made a last minute addition of what I call the demo state. Essentially I will be building a powered base for it, so when its on the base (docked) it will run a separate pattern with no sound. Enough typing on to the video.

Thanks for looking

Posting another update. I wanted to have this at least electronically finalized and tested before this weekend was over. I did that. So I set another goal of having it mostly mechanically together as well before the weekend. It was a two steps forward and one step kind of deal and I nearly just scrapped the project due to corrupted code. Anyhow, I hit both goals and wanted to post the video of it. This is pretty much done code wise. There may be a few tweaks of coloring and/or brightness, but I’m calling it complete. I looked back at the first post and it’s interesting to see how much has changed. Enough text onto the video.

Are you still working on this project? I've only just found this thread but found the video back in 2019, I absolutely love the prop so far in the video. Personally I believe It's one of the best Portal Gun replicas I've ever seen by far.

Asc4 said:

Are you still working on this project? I've only just found this thread but found the video back in 2019, I absolutely love the prop so far in the video. Personally I believe It's one of the best Portal Gun replicas I've ever seen by far.

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Hey! I am actually. I stopped posting anything since I felt like I was talking to myself. I started to redesign most of the pieces in FreeCAD and make some changes while I was at it.
Thank you for the kind words. That’s High praise considering my predecessors.