Custom Sith Holocron

[Richo27]

I started desgining this holocron more than a year ago with the intention of actually building it as you see in the render, the centre pyramid would be made of ruby red tinted polycarbonate with coated aluminium or stainless pieces (the dark gold bits) and stainless steel mesh and gold plated thin sheet stainless steel for the circuit tracks. It was to encase an SSD of at least 500mb or 1TB. It would be internally lit so it would flicker as would a normal light on any external HDD when in use. My intention for this design was never for it to sit on a shelf as a discussion piece, but for it to be a functional piece of artwork.

This is a completely custom design, sorry if this offends any purists out there, but the holocron designs from Star Wars literature are to me, rather bland in design and detail to say the least.

But to build it the the way I wanted with the intricate design of individual pieces plus adding an SSD into the mix would of made it far to expensive to produce (or have a limited market to sell too), plus the fact that it being called a "Holocron" I would have no way of selling it anyway unless I was lucky to strike up a deal with Lucas Arts. I feel that without the functionality of an external hard drive it would be an expensive, yet fancy looking paper weight, so I wouldnt want to exclude this part of the design.

I am not a replica builder per se but I am an engineer that grew up on Star Wars and love to make things, so I thought I post it up to see what you guys might think. Its still a work in progress, I have started doing some sketches for a Jedi "cubic" design as well (custom of course).

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I really like it! It doesn't matter what they look like since they were supposed to be unique to the builder. I think it would be very expensive to have someone make it though!

 

[darthgordon]

I like it... and Sluis points out, each one looks different. There is no definitive holocron.

 

[Rick H]

Nice indeed. Gives it a personnel feel.

 

[Logan Cade]

Now that is a piece of art!

 

[Richo27]

Thanks for your comments.

Im completely noob to props, in particular selling props from the SW universe. If I was to start actually making these and selling them as Sith (or Jedi) holocrons, id imagine id have some Lucas Arts heavies knocking on my door pretty fast, can anyone point me in the right direction to get some clear info on this?

Id really like to start making these, but will of course need to sell them to be able to fund it all.

 

[666]

I'm new here, and I love what you create, and let's see
I didn't read StarWars, anywhere in your piece of art.....
I didn't read even Holocron there....
It's an incredible Hard Drive case, and looks like some sci fi masterpiece, can be assigned to a specific movie? why?, If I can afford it, I take it, because I like it, and I can call it, wherever I like, a holocron, or my sci fi pyramid, or my freaking awesome hard drive case...

Actually looks like a weapon that jason can use it to kill several hundreds in his next movie..., or can be the device that can hold the new antivirus T...

I bet, is going to be expensive, just because solid state drives are expensive, and your design is a piece of art, but with no name, if I can afford it, I'm going to take a no name pyramid hard drive case.

Today Magic Word = "looks like"

 

[666]

DELETE ME

sorry, hit post 2 times by mistake

 

[Contec]

maybe sell it as "the Evil sides storage unit" "Storage units like these was use a long time ago by the Evil sides to store their devilish plan of galactic evilness. Now you can use it to store your own dark secrets."

 

[DanielS]

It's an awesome design

 

[boshwan527]

that's awesome! I really like it


p.s. what was it modeled/rendered in?

 

[C0mmand3rC0dy]

Major coolness

 

[whoami11]

Richo27, that thing is beautiful. I stared at the thing for a couple minutes looking at the amount of detail and how each different element blends so well to create a beautiful but evil evoking look. Very well done!

-Ryan

 

[Richo27]

Wow guys thanks for the responses, really encouraging.

I am dusting off my CAD models now to finish off the last 5% to get this into production. Due to technology limitations its probably only going to be 128GB, but hey thats still pretty good... and anyway it will be designed so that if larger capacity SSD boards come out with the same form factor you could potentially upgrade it if you wished.

Ill post updates as I go along.

 

[Richo27]

that's awesome! I really like it


p.s. what was it modeled/rendered in?

CAD program: Solid Edge
Rendered in: Keyshot

 

[DarthGM]

That's really unique. I like it!

I love the corners of the base especially...

 

[666]

if I may, here an idea to make this cheaper and useful
right now its a hard drive that is going to add more than $100 to the end value, what about a USB HUB version? one side in, all other sides out. usb base hubs are cheap

sorry i have big mouth

 

[madmanmoe64]

That thing is insane.
Any idea how you're going to actually make it?
CNC Milling?

 

[Richo27]

I could offer these without the SSD functionality, thats just my personal preference. Flash memory is an option but is limited to 32GB, this is fine for a thumb drive but for this device I would want it to be on par with any other external HDD with regard to capacity. If it was sold without the data storage it would still have the internal cavities for the electronics, I could make it set up so a regular thumb drive could be used. Yes it could also be a USB hub, my only concern is if I make too many different options its going to add to the cost with additional moulds etc. This is just the beginning though I have even more crazy ideas of what a device like this could do.

As for manufacturing, the majority of the pieces will have to be moulded due to the fine detail, I may have to resort to investment or lost wax casting, CNC machining is too limiting, as well as having poor surface finish. Basically due to the detail Im going to have to manufacture it like its jewellery. Plan is to develop moulds from rapid prototyping, the centre pyramid will likely be resin cast. The circuit tracks and hexagonal mesh will be photo chemical machined from thin stainless sheet metal (0.1mm thick) and then electroplated.

Ill be visiting some manufacturers early in the new year to go over the details for production.

 

[Richo27]

maybe sell it as "the Evil sides storage unit" "Storage units like these was use a long time ago by the Evil sides to store their devilish plan of galactic evilness. Now you can use it to store your own dark secrets."

Im going to expand on this idea I think, thank you :thumbsup