Interest Holocron Kit

Yeah...to be specific, the driver board I've been developing for other projects is Arduino compatible. It is one of the family that doesn't have native USB support, though. One option I have is to make a header arrangement that will fit a standard-format Arduino, then running Arduino-ISP on the latter. Me, I used a cheap stand-alone ISP (Lady Ada's). Means I can make Arduino-compatible boards with nothing but ATtiny25 and an ICSP header. Or some jumpers, if it comes to that.

Oh, yeah...the board I've been working on drives 4 channels at 350ma each. Concept is an ultra-cheap stand-alone color/animation driver for 1-watt RGB and RGBW's. First set of boards came back from OSH and basically work but there's a round of fixes and improvements still to go... Have yet to touch the user-facing code, but the intent is to be able to at least dial up color from hardware -- no programming needed. (I sorta forgot about that function when I wrote my last post. Too many spoons in the air!)

For some reason the SWOTR never moved me. Plus I've mostly been sticking to stuff where the shell is self-supporting and you don't have to line up anything during the glue stage. Once I get out of that mold, I'll probably explore other options as well, such as electro-etch metal parts......



But, really, my purpose in doing this is not to make the greatest holocron ever, but to make a simple and affordable one available (for those that don't have time or inclination to learn the mysteries of lasers et al themselves).
 
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Sounds like you're headed in a great direction. Any thought to adding sound? Can't wait to see what you offer, but I'm in at this point.
 
Why stop there? There's got to be a way to make a hologram of a deceased Jedi master hover on top of the thing, right?

(More seriously...would be pretty cool to have lights synch'ed to a recorded voice..............)
 
nomuse said:
Why stop there? There's got to be a way to make a hologram of a deceased Jedi master hover on top of the thing, right?

(More seriously...would be pretty cool to have lights synch'ed to a recorded voice..............)
Click to expand...

hah, point taken, you always have to draw the line somewhere. I've just seen some made with sound that really brought the prop into another level. Lots of cool audio these days from swtor and other sources.
 
As cool as a fully loaded one would be i think simple is better just a led and a plug. I can add the flash storage and probably install the led with some instructions. that was those of us who want to use it as a night light for our kids can and those of us who want to go balls to the wall can add that stuff themselves. Just my two cents.
 
It's a go.

I just cut out the latest shell and diffusion design and I like the way they look. Will post pics as soon as it is assembled and painted up, and I'll start a new thread for the project run.

The aim is still for a budget holo -- for the best-looking holo kit I can provide for the lowest cost possible.

Electronics will take a few weeks longer to sort out. I'm committing to fabbing a new board with integral Lipo charge regulator and USB breakout, as well as the on-board lighting effects controller, as the "A" option. There will be enough breakout pins to add a third-party sound board, but color/animation selection and control is going to have to be from the onboard hardware or full programming via Arduino-ISP; I'm just not up to constructing a do-everything GUI that will run seamlessly on a variety of different OS, much less the hardware layer to make it a full USB peripheral.


The new shell, prior to glue-and-paint:

P1010002.JPG
 
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PM sent... super cool concept I see the thread is a year old, but was this project ever finalized and are the Holocron Kits available? thanks...
 
Still on, but the electronics is taking longer than predicted. I'm trying to make it do a lot of stuff BUT be really cheap. The combination of powerful LEDs, plug-and-play functionality, USB file hosting, off-line (aka battery) operation, and (limited) user customization is requiring a painful amount of electrical engineering work. And work has been exceptionally busy over the past couple of months!

I'm really hoping to have my new PCBs fabbed and ready to test within 2-3 more weeks, and while I'm waiting on the fab house I'll run off a prototype or two of the new acrylic.
 
Thanks for the PM reply... I am sure interested in a full electronic version with on-board power :D
 
Whew. Finally got the circuit worked out, finishing the routing on the PCB now. I should have the prototype boards in my hands in about two weeks, and if nothing went "too" wrong I can move on to programming.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to knock the cost of the parts down very much. The lithium polymer battery is the biggest line item, followed by the LEDs. Totals about $20 in parts, meaning I should really be pricing them at $40 of more (I'm going to try to offer in kit form at reduced price, but there are a lot of surface mount components in addition to the time-consuming hand wiring of the USB lead and the LED array and I think I will have to be doing those myself).

The electronics board is based on 4 20ma RGB LEDs (for 360 coverage), animated via an Arduino compatible (ATtiny85, no FTDI). Runs off USB with a self-charging battery for offline use and includes a USB breakout (standard USB-A jack) for user-supplied thumb drive. Tilt switch to turn it off without opening the box, capacitive sensor to react to touch, and a couple buttons inside to customize a little (setting the color, mostly).



On the Holocron itself, I'll be making test cuts this month on my new design, but I'll fold those improvements back in so I'll be able to offer most of the looks I've shown off in this thread as options. I've been pushing hardest on the "Stolen," as that is the most canonical design I know of (well, EU canon...) Unfortunately rotating corners aren't achievable without different fabrication techniques, and my goal on this has always been to offer the cheapest assemble-your-own Holocron kit I can make happen.

Keep watching this space. I'm over the hump now and believe I can have something available in early July.
 
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