Fusion Furnace Build

[Imadesignerd]

Sometimes I make the most progress that way!

I like the pcbs for the leds. How did you populate them? I tried doing something smaller and it went poorly.

I'm not sure there are enough builds to do a real run in a sensible manner. Many only a couple a year. It might be helpful though if folks wanted to use that technique.

Did you try lighting them all? That seems like a lot of leds!

They arent PCBs, just LED strip glued to the 3D printed housing. However, I was just looking in to LED "sticks" and there are a few out there. I would probably recommend to others that they consider going that direction, as this approach was tedious. I tested the strip before I cut it up and soldered everything. I have yet to finish soldering the last 2 small trips for a second test.

Here is a link to a strip made for Voron 3D printers. A little pricey, but would do the job well and would be VERY easy to wire up.

https://west3d.com/products/disco-on-a-stick

heck, maybe someone could make a strip PCB that would use LEDs similar to the ones used in the Teeces PSIs

[kresty]

Ah, they just fit so nicely, I'd assumed incorrectly!

[Imadesignerd]

Ah, they just fit so nicely, I'd assumed incorrectly!

Thanks! 

Made more progress on the filling and painting. I decided to go with rustoleum hammered black paint. Helps hide my bad filling/sanding job and gives a nice metal look. I am almost ready to paint the lid and assemble.

I started the print of the translucent cylinder today as well.

[kresty]

Cool!

[Imadesignerd]

Made some more progress today. Painted the underside of the detail parts, finished the filling and sanding and put down a layer of paint. Its really starting to look like something!

I measured the inside diameter of the center cylinder and used tinkercad to create a 3mm thick hollow cylinder in clear PETG and glued it in to the center. I also printed a similar ring for the top and glue that in as well. Now to just attach the lid. I am going to leave the top section seperate from the bottom to allow for the ability to work on electronics.

I have been thinking about how easy it would be to snap off the detail parts if they were just glued on so I have been brainstorming ideas on how to prevent that. I am open to any suggestions, but as of now I am thinking about drilling a hole in the center of each of the pieces and inserting a dowel. Then drilling holes into the base for the dowels to go into with CA glue.

Thoughts?

Also, I recently saw this trick used for painting small parts. Just make a loop of tape, making it double sided and tape that down to some carboard. Then just stick the parts to the tape. Much faster than hot gluing each part to the cardboard like I did on the first pass of painting.

[Imadesignerd]

Made more progress this weekend. Got the greeblies glued on and added dowles to others. I decided to add the T pieces for the hoses and then glue the hoses to them before threading them into the body and trimming the hoses to size. Seemed to work with 7 of 8. One is being stubborn and popping off the T piece. I left it over night with more CA glue in hopes that it finally sets up. 

I also put it over a lamp bulb to check for light leaks and get an idea of what it will look like. I am very happy with how it looks so far. Just a few more holes to drill and greebs to glue and then back to electronics.

[kresty]

Looking like a Fusion Furnace. I liked building the coils.

[Imadesignerd]

Looking like a Fusion Furnace.  I liked building the coils.

Yeah the coils were fun. I used a lifter rod from a VW engine that I am building to wrap the wire around. Hopefully I’ll get a bit of time to finish the detail parts this weekend. Then back to the electronics!

[Imadesignerd]

I am excited to say that I have finished the "structural build" part of this project. I now have a sweet prop to display.



I decided to take a page out of Kresty's book and went with the soaker hose from a local big box home improvement store. I really wanted a hose that had some character/texture to it and everything i found online was just plain rubber hose. I have to say, it looks fantastic in my opinion.

ON TO THE ELECTRONICS!

My goal for this build is to make it actually charge the droid. So I soldered up a 1/4 audio jack and cut an access hole into the furnace for mounting. The jack will be mounted to the final square detail piece that will then be glued on over that large hole. I still need to get in there and clearance more of the support material away so the jack can sit proper.




Over the last few days, I also took some time to button up some of the electronics. Still a ways to go, but this is how it sits for now. I decided to go a different direction with the ESP32 and the sound board. I will have some pictures of that to add here soon. Someone had suggested that I do a custom PCB, and if this all works, I think that would be an excellent idea.



As its wired, each bank of LEDs. is daisy chained and I have two points of power injection, which will be critical to ensure no funny business happens with this many LEDs. Once I sort out the control boards, it will be time to wire everything up and test it before I cut out the rest of the access holes in the fusion furnace. Here is a short test video of one of the effects that I am planning with these LEDs. This test is just a candle flicker bulb that we use at Hallowen. Kresty, if you read this, you might want to consider picking up one of these bulbs for your build for a little added PIZZAZ. https://www.amazon.com/Hompavo-Flickerin...Q8V1X?th=1

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/md8Yuvmw5zE

Again, the goal is to use the sound reactive fork of WLED to make the lights react to the audio file, wether that be a constant hum, pulse or even the beat of music. The amp I used in this project has bluetooth capability so having a light reactive boombox is not out of the realm of possibility. Not sure what sort of sound fidelity I will get out of this thing though. haha!

[kresty]

Cool, looking great! I liked the audio jack too.