TOS Communicator Build

turner3d

New Member
I am in the process of building a rather unconventional Star Trek TOS Communicator. I have seen amazing builds where people have even copied the yellowed glue around the rhinestones, in an attempt to recreate every aspect of the original props - this will not be that. I am really just trying to create an experience. I won't be using Kydex or mounting a stopwatch. I hope this isn't RPF sacrilege, but I will be 3d printing most of the pieces. I've already taken UnimatrixRed's version of the communicator and have been iterating on accurizing it. The silver knobs now match the specs of the original Aurora Vibe C wheels, the lid now has stops built in so it doesn't flop back, the mic has been modeled from specs of the Coronet 2-Transistor radio grill (yes, I know trying to print it FDM is silly - it'll eventually be resin if I can't find the real thing), and I'm waiting on a shipment of 16ss crystal AB, olivine AB, and siam rhinestones.

I am in the early days of development, and has been no post-processing done on anything in this pic - it is raw PLA straight out of an FDM printer. The body will eventually be filled, sanded, and painted with a textured paint to try to simulate kydex, etc.

communicator.jpg


Anyway, I have 3 goals:
  1. Make it look convincing
  2. Install electronics to make it chirp when opened - currently thinking Adafruit board with wav playback & amp built in + tiny speaker behind the mic grill
  3. Have a decently accurate animated moire (that's just a laser-printed piece of paper stuck in there at the moment)
My biggest issue right now is figuring out how to get the moire moving. My first thought was to use a continuous sweep clock movement and maybe gear it up to 2rpm, but all the ones I've seen are 2 1/8" x 2 1/8" x 5/8". I see them for sale all over the place for $10ish, but they're all the same size (probably made by the same co & rebranded) I may buy one and try to build a new chassis to hold the motor and only the gears necessary for the second hand - it might be doable. The only other options I know of involve stepper motors or just dc motors geared way down. I'm guessing that both of those would be extremely noisy.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get a moire spinning quietly @ 2rpm without breaking the bank?
 
Do it the same way they did in TOS. Any 30 second sweep stopwatch would get the moire spinning, you just cut a hole in the shell, remove the crystal, glue watch face up on the shells, snip the hand main sweep and glue the lower disk to the hand. They can be had on ebay for as little as $30
 
Progress update:

First off, my rhinestone order came in - they made a huge difference, IMHO. They're not the exact shape of the originals as the Swarovski model 2000 stones are extremely hard to come by, but the colors and sizes are accurate. Note that the orange-ish one sitting off to the side by itself matches the center stone in season 3. The story goes that the center stone (Siam) fell off of the alpha hero, and they stole one (Hyacinth) from one of the dummy props to replace it. I wasn't sure which one I wanted to go with, so I got both.

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comm1.jpg


Next, I took a $5 1.5V "continuous sweep" silent clock movement and gutted everything not responsible for spinning the second hand. I also 3d printed an alpha-accurate housing for the moire which mates with pins on the clock chassis. I was able to get the whole thing pretty small, but it's still going to be a super tight fit. It's only 1rpm instead of 2, but it's close enough.


Still much to do, including rebuilding the 3d model of the body from scratch - I need to mostly hollow it out anyway, and the shape isn't completely accurate. Coming up:
  • Find a textured spray paint that closely resembles the Kydex "haircell" pattern used on the vacuformed original
  • Find a tiny sample player/amp for the sound (maybe DFPlayer?), hopefully one that boots up quick and can play sound on startup. I'd rather not have to turn things on with a switch before flipping the lid will play the sound
  • Find a tiny decent sounding speaker that can be mounted under the mic grill
  • Figure out how to best trigger the sound and clock motor when the top is flipped open (maybe magnetic reed switch?)
I would really appreciate any input/ideas for any of these remaining elements.
 
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UnimatrixRed's model is the closest I've been able to find, but it's a little off in many ways. I'd rebuilt most of the details already, and decided to just redo the whole thing. I now have the body remodeled thanks to the all of the fantastic info posted over at herocomm.com.

I took screenshots of cross sections and elevations of the alpha hero in the blueprints pdf in conjunction with exact measurements, and used them as guides in Onshape to craft a new and much more accurate body.

onshape loft.jpg


You can see from the quick assembly I threw together in Orca that it's looking much closer to the original. Note that I didn't model the jewels - those are pedistals for gluing the rhinestones (an accurate model of the underside of an Aurora Vibe C slot car wheel). Matching the original also gave me a little over an extra millimeter to play with for fitting in the clock mechanism, so it should fit now without issues!

new model - top view.jpg

new model - isometric view.jpg
 
Update: made minor tweaks here and there to the body shape to smooth out some of the curves, got the base shape of the antenna modeled, and put together an assembly in Onshape for testing part relationships (makes for some pretty cool primitive renders of it with everything together, too)

Next up: gotta get the holes in the antenna surface, then comes laying out the insides for magnet / reed switch / clock / battery / sound chip / speaker.

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It looks like you're having fun!

I've built a number of DStines and John Long kits. I've restored/rebuilt a bunch of JTK comms too. Replicating the haircell texture is a really difficult thing. I can't think of a way to do it easily. I'm interested to see what you come up with. Personally, I'd feel better about a smooth matte finish than a haircell that's not perfect. But, that's just preference.

As far as the moire, I've built some with stop watches. I was looking into how to build a stepper motor with gearing. I even had some CAD drawings of a holder and gears. Then Wand released their comm and I just gave up. LOL.
 
It looks like you're having fun!

I've built a number of DStines and John Long kits. I've restored/rebuilt a bunch of JTK comms too. Replicating the haircell texture is a really difficult thing. I can't think of a way to do it easily. I'm interested to see what you come up with. Personally, I'd feel better about a smooth matte finish than a haircell that's not perfect. But, that's just preference.

As far as the moire, I've built some with stop watches. I was looking into how to build a stepper motor with gearing. I even had some CAD drawings of a holder and gears. Then Wand released their comm and I just gave up. LOL.
It seems like there must be some way to do a respectable haircell, but I sure haven't found anyone who knows. I guess I have some experimenting to do.

I figured out my moire - I wound up going with a $3.80 "continuous sweep" clock movement (Amazon.com) The case is too big to squeeze into a communicator body, but after stripping it down to the bare minimum to keep the second-hand shaft spinning, it'll fit nicely.

 
Update: The antenna has holes! That was a tedious one - both modeling the curvy antenna and getting the holes to sit at decent angles. (There was probably a more efficient way to make it happen, but I'm kind of an Onshape noob)
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I have a ballpark idea of where the internals will sit too. I'm not going to mess with modeling standoffs and such until I can get it all breadboarded and make sure it works with those parts. A lot still in the theoretical right now.

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After finishing the modeling of the antenna and getting some of the internal situation squared away, it was finally time to lift the model out of the virtual and into the real. This is just a test run to make sure things fit (they do!), and it's completely pre-paint. Also, pay no attention to the wires going to the AA battery - they will eventually lead to a smaller internal power source. I love it when a plan comes together!

 
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