Another Blade Runner thread: The Portable Voight-Kampff Scanner

Birdie said:
I don't recommend doing the rail with acrylic...it's pretty brittle and is not going to support much wear and tear unless supported by something else. On my replica I used several layers of engraving laminate that has a realistic steel effect surface called metalgraph, that can be cut with a CO2 laser. Ended up fairly tough and has a flexibility that acrylic doesn't. Just a thought :)
Click to expand...

Color me interested! What kind of laser do you use? I've got one of those cheapo Chinese K40 CO2 lasers that I've been refitting and improving, but short of actually replacing the tube on it I'm somewhat limited to the power that allows. How thick was the material you were cutting?

The sheets of this metalgraph stuff look great. It does come up a bit pricy, but I think if I'm smart about how I laid the parts out for cutting I could get a lot out of a 12" x 24" sheet. In fairness, it is also just acrylic with an extra coating, but it looks pretty good.

Got any recommendations for sourcing it? Johnson Plastics looks like an OK option, but I've ordered from them before and their shipping takes forever.
 
The more I consider my options for putting a latching force on the button the more I'm leaning towards dental bands. They're small, they're fairly strong, and I'm assuming that because they're designed to survive the inside of people's mouths, they might be durable enough to last inside the device. Then again, I don't have firsthand experience with these things - it could just as easily be that these are sold in packs of hundreds because they break all the time. Might have to buy a handful and stress test them - the last thing I want is a band twanging loose inside a closed prop.
 
I have a 40w 500 x 300mm flatbed, I cut up to 8mm acrylic fairly easily, above that multiple cuts are necessary and the kerf gets pretty big. With reference to the laminate - it's a standard 1.5mm thickness, so yeah, it's not brittle like 3mm acrylic, it's more like ABS.

I use Hindleys in the UK, which probably isn't much use to you in the US :) It works out cheaper the larger the sheet you buy, I guess that could be a problem deciding on the size of your laser bed.




Ein said:
Color me interested! What kind of laser do you use? I've got one of those cheapo Chinese K40 CO2 lasers that I've been refitting and improving, but short of actually replacing the tube on it I'm somewhat limited to the power that allows. How thick was the material you were cutting?

The sheets of this metalgraph stuff look great. It does come up a bit pricy, but I think if I'm smart about how I laid the parts out for cutting I could get a lot out of a 12" x 24" sheet. In fairness, it is also just acrylic with an extra coating, but it looks pretty good.

Got any recommendations for sourcing it? Johnson Plastics looks like an OK option, but I've ordered from them before and their shipping takes forever.
Click to expand...
 
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Ah, my little laser does about 300mm x 200mm in terms of area, and even that is not a sure thing; the farther away I get with the mirrors from the origin, the less powerful I'm cutting, as my mirrors have needed replacement and/or alignment for a while now. I mostly cut as close to the origin as I can most of the time to cheat it. :lol

Positive my machine couldn't manage 8mm acrylic. 3mm is about where I max out for cuts without so many passes that I start losing dimensional accuracy.
 
Ein said:
I'm trying to do this as economically as I can, honestly. The custom PCBs actually save a lot of money in the long run - they mean I can buy raw components and put them together instead of buying fully-built things and trying to jam them into that space. A 2.4" TFT screen with the PCB on it (which I'd have to remove anyway) is $~10, while one without is only $~4.
Click to expand...

I was halfway joking. If you do start selling these complex little feats of engineering, I hope you stress test the heck out of them. :)
 
Mylodon said:
What's the dimension for the rails your trying to figure out?
Click to expand...

If you're talking about that back linear rail, I'm almost positive it's 3mm wide, and I actually tracked it down at the end of my earlier post. Only problem is the rails they used look like they cost about $90 for a 40mm length. No thanks. :/

I figured I'd take a bit of time and bang together a proof of concept to see what parts of my slide design were fundamentally garbage. I took the parts I had been working on and simplified the VK's shell into a basic cube, keeping the other parts exactly the same as they should be. With some slightly simplified geometry, I was able to put together a quick 'dummy' mechanism to test the opening and closing design for flaws. I split it into a couple of parts to make it easier for me to print, and it's currently being manufactured on the machine.











For the purposes of this test, I'm just going to loop a rubber band around the green trigger and use it to pull the button from the outside. This is less a test of the latching mechanism, and more a test of the bearings and rail alignments to see if everything stays in roughly the same place it's supposed to. I cut some windows into non-critical areas so I could watch what was going on and hopefully visually identify anything that goes awry for future correction. I should have a test piece together either tonight or tomorrow morning!
 
Ein said:
If you're talking about that back linear rail, I'm almost positive it's 3mm wide, and I actually tracked it down at the end of my earlier post. Only problem is the rails they used look like they cost about $90 for a 40mm length. No thanks. :/

I figured I'd take a bit of time and bang together a proof of concept to see what parts of my slide design were fundamentally garbage. I took the parts I had been working on and simplified the VK's shell into a basic cube, keeping the other parts exactly the same as they should be. With some slightly simplified geometry, I was able to put together a quick 'dummy' mechanism to test the opening and closing design for flaws. I split it into a couple of parts to make it easier for me to print, and it's currently being manufactured on the machine.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/PNUsTe4l.png[/URL]

[url]http://i.imgur.com/45Qh1U0l.png[/URL]

[url]http://i.imgur.com/J6aZuYrl.png[/URL]

[url]http://i.imgur.com/YBIz7X5l.png[/URL]

[url]http://i.imgur.com/2dejQjRl.png[/URL]

For the purposes of this test, I'm just going to loop a rubber band around the green trigger and use it to pull the button from the outside. This is less a test of the latching mechanism, and more a test of the bearings and rail alignments to see if everything stays in roughly the same place it's supposed to. I cut some windows into non-critical areas so I could watch what was going on and hopefully visually identify anything that goes awry for future correction. I should have a test piece together either tonight or tomorrow morning!
Click to expand...
Awesome! Which parts are you worried about their strength? I wish I could help more but I'm not great with electronics or cad, and don't have nearly as much experience as you guys with building replicas, but maybe I can give some thoughts on a few things
 
Came to the same realization after sending that button the other day. My heads nearly at a solution but I have not had the eureka moment yet... There's buttons like this one used everywhere in everyday items, I just can't think of what keeps that back pressure on it right now...
 
Maybe go with dual springs embedded in the switch or frame or
Spring steel in a curved shape leaving room for expansion :

Also, may need to add 2 small tabs on the switch to keep it from pushing out
and a bit shorter (as shown on the left).

2049 dual spring and steel 4.jpg


Or a short piece of rubber surgical tubing, small piece of foam, rubberband, etc.

.
 
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Do you have a limit of how many of these will be sold? I think this will be one of if not the most sought after item ever offered here.
 
I have my name in for possibly getting one of the Scanner Bodies when complete but will be doing my own electronics and internal pop-up mech.

I took my 3d modeling program and did a quick rendering. This of course is just a mock-up since I don't have any idea as to how much room will be available in the body. .

2049 scanner test 3D images 3.jpg

Also here is a quick little video of the business part:


https://youtu.be/ehA3kTk35ds

.
 
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Now that that the holidays are over, I was wondering if there has been any new developments on the scanner?
It looked as though there was some progress on the body and pop-up mechanism...
Looking forward to any new changes. :)

Happy New Year!

.
 
as another idea contrary to using ball bearings would be to use strips of Teflon. These could be much more compact and would also stabilize the pop-up part in the second axis (and they would be cheaper, I guess...). Teflon would also minimize binding.

I would say that 2 ball bearings are not enough to get a solid sliding mechanism. You would need at least 3 to get it constrained.
 
Well, since I started learning a bit of modeling with my new 3D program, earlier I did a quick rendering of the pop-up feature
on the retinal scanner and now I decided to try my hand at doing the body as well.
(moved to a new thread)
 
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Hey dude! I got the movie, and got a couple of screenshots that show some stuff:

1. The "boot up screen" is like a flash that covers the entire screen, then it goes...dark? (first frame top left)
2. During scanning the first LED that goes on is the blue, then the red and white (bottom left)
3. There seems to be an orange LED on top of the scanning module that "seems" to stay orange when the subject is a replicant. Screen is lit during scanning, then it goes dark again. (Top right)
4. While scanning there's a white light coming from inside the device (second frame top left)

Blade Runner 2049 - VK detector.jpg

I added a screenshot of the car screen too, I hope it helps in any way.

Cheers!
 
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