TOS Communicator Build

[turner3d]

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.

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?





_________________________________________________________________________________________

Update: 3 months later, and I have achieved my goal. You can see the progression of some checkpoints in this pic from lower left to lower right - everything in the UnimatrixRed comm had already been rebuilt by the 2nd version, and the one on the bottom right represents a complete rebuild without a single vertex of the model in common with where it started. Here's a summary of where things went:

* Moire: Used silent-sweep clock movement, hacked down to only the necessary parts
* Sound: Used a DFPlayer board
* Trigger: Sound effects triggered by a 6x2mm neodymium magnet in one of the hinge wheels when it rotates into proximity with a magnetic reed switch
* Model: All parts modeled from scratch with tons of help from the data at herocomm.com










Here she is in action

If you're interested in a static version of the accurate model, it's now available at Star Trek TOS Communicator | 3D Print Model

 

[jake88]

Can’t wait to see what comes of this. Looks like you’ve got the passion to make this thing great.

 

[PicasoX]

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

 

[turner3d]

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.

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.

 

[PicasoX]

looking pretty sweet!

 

[jheilman]

Nicely done so far.

 

[turner3d]

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.

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!

 

[turner3d]

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.

 

[JediJim]

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.

 

[turner3d]

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.

 

[turner3d]

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)

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.

 

[turner3d]

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!

 

[finalfrontier]

Amazing! Is the antenna brass?

 

[turner3d]

Amazing! Is the antenna brass?

Nope - just PLA (Overture Gold Silk filament), 3d printed on a P1S. Still way too yellow for my taste - I'm looking for convincing brass finish.

 

[turner3d]

I was looking for a way to make the knobs & gem mounts look chrome plated (like the original Aurora slot car wheels) and remembered Adam Savage raving about Molotow pen refills for an easy chrome finish. I snagged a Molotow "Liquid Chrome" pen, and holy cow - those things are like magic! The results can be seen here on the knobs

 

[finalfrontier]

Wow that's great!

 

[Arky]

Holy crap, that looks great!

 

[Arky]

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.

If your slicer has a "fuzzy skin" setting, that can produce a fair approximation of the haircell texture. This was done on a Bambu with the Fuzzy Skin set to Contour, Point Distance 0.05mm and Thickness 0.05mm.

 

[turner3d]

If your slicer has a "fuzzy skin" setting, that can produce a fair approximation of the haircell texture. This was done on a Bambu with the Fuzzy Skin set to Contour, Point Distance 0.05mm and Thickness 0.05mm.

View attachment 1906581

I had originally rejected this idea because I was printing the parts laying on their back and had read that fuzzy skin really only works on vertical sufaces. The geometry has evolved to the point that I'm printing them standing straight up to print, so I'll have to play with this! Thanks for the mental nudge

 

[turner3d]

Damn, haircell is hard.

If your slicer has a "fuzzy skin" setting, that can produce a fair approximation of the haircell texture. This was done on a Bambu with the Fuzzy Skin set to Contour, Point Distance 0.05mm and Thickness 0.05mm.

View attachment 1906581

Question - what layer height were you using in that pic? Is that a .2 or something finer?