I Built a Miniature Warp Core
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- I'm building a model of the warp core from the engineering set of Star Trek: The Next Generation, with animated lighting effects.
The model is 3D printed in resin by me, and based on a design by an artist named CrazyJ. The model by CrazyJ was freely available on Thingiverse, under the name "Warp Core v2".
I did my own custom lighting scheme different from the artist's original design. The model also has a custom paint job and custom decals.
Here are some links to some of the supplies I used:
Push button switch:
www.amazon.com...
Female USB-A plug:
www.amazon.com...
Red COB LED strip, 5V:
www.amazon.com...
Ice blue COB LED strip, 5V:
www.amazon.com...
CD4017 decade counter chip:
www.amazon.com...
Decal paper:
www.amazon.com...
The other electronic components I had on hand from past projects.
Really really cool! I have only one small comment about the blue bands, the transition from the first stack to the second is a little to abrupt. When the "pulse" goes through the dividing black ring, there should be a slight pause, or a dummy 6th LED to bridge that gap. I'm well aware I'm nitpicking here... Again it's a phenomenal build, the aluminium tape was a smart solution for getting those two bands per ring in there!
Thank you! Yeah, the skip over the black ring bothers me, too. I considered adding in the skipped 6th segment, but the decade counter chip has 10 outputs, just enough to drive the 10 pairs of lighted coil segments. Adding in the skip would have complicated the circuitry more than I was willing to do, so I accepted this compromise.
No worries about the nitpick, I appreciate the comment.
@@mistakeman the limit of outputs makes sense :) you could in theory add a second astable 555 that is triggered by the 4017 to pause the first 555 for half a second, but that would, as you said complicate the circuit further :) again... Great work on this project, the quality you get with resin printing really benefits the overal quality of the model. Maybe I should try this on my FDM
Really cool, nice work!
Thank you!
most excellent! i downloaded the files and am gonna try it myself. great job!
It's a great model. Have fun!
Nice work, it’s looking great 👍 the lighting effect looks really nice.
Thank you!
Awesome!
I've always had the urge to build this one, the Defiant and the NX-01.
Voyager or TMP would probably be too hard thanks to the swirling energy.
That's a cool idea. You should go for it!
Excellent work, my compliments. Perhaps EL-wire or LED filaments would come closer to replicate the lighting, in case you want to try more iterations.
Thank you! The El wire I've seen is probably too dim for what I wanted here. I also looked at some flexible LED filaments when I was brainstorming. The main challenges were finding the right color (ice blue or at least cool white that I could tint blue) and finding a length that would work. You can't cut the filament to the desired size, so you have to use what you're given. The filament diameter is also a bit large for this scale.
If you scaled up the model, you might find a sweet spot where the filament length and diameter both work.
Thanks for watching!
@@mistakeman aaah, yes, I should have known you already investigated those options. Looking forward to your next project.
A $5 Seeeduino Xia SAMD21 would run your LEDs and is the size of a postage stamp. Waaaay easier to program with the FastLED library than your DIY circuitboard.
Of course if that DIY board was fun for you then more power to ya.
Instead of masking off the rings, why not mask off the LED strip itself? A black sharpie and your straight edge oughta do it.
The final result does look good, though. So how you did it probably doesn't matter too much :) Other than perhaps offering alternative ideas to other people who wanna try the same project.
Thank you! If anyone else wants to build one of these, what you've described is definitely the easier way to go. For me, I really enjoyed designing and building the board. Not everyone is into that, so I appreciate the comment.
Now you just need a little speaker that has the low heartbeat sound of the core. The perfect nightlight/white-noise machine.
I seriously considered adding the sound effect, but I wouldn't be satisfied with the sound quality from a speaker small enough to fit inside the model. The sound is a bass-heavy thrum that really needs a subwoofer to do it justice.
The top manifold is already speaker shaped. Perfect for a sub. Even without any speakers, I can still hear it when I look at it. Very cool either way!
@@PugFury Haha, true!
Now that you built this. Can we eject it before warp core overloads?
*WARNING BEEP*
Computer voice: "Warp core ejection system is offline."
Awesome!
I've always had the urge to build this one, the Defiant and the NX-01.
Voyager or TMP would probably be too hard thanks to the swirling energy.
@@Iskelderon Thank you! The swirling effect would be very tricky. LED fireplaces use an analog effect to mimic fire, and something similar could work for warp plasma.
Big Clive on RUclips has some teardown videos of LED fireplaces that show how they work.
Nice work but its a bit abrupt not really a pulse, can I suggest the use of an Arduino to control you can then actual fade to each band as a true pulse less components and you will have flexibility the adjust the speed on the fly and even make is variable
@@brianburgess7733 Thanks! An arduino or similar would be a great way to go, and was suggested by the original designer.
For this project, I wanted to try building the circuit myself with counter chips and such. It was educational and enjoyable for me.
Smoothing out the pulse would look great, but I wanted to mimic the on-screen effect, and I think I got really close.
Well done!!! Do you have links of where you got all your lighting?
Thank you! I've updated the video description to add links for most of the components I used. Others I didn't provide links for because I had them on hand already, but they are not hard to find. If you want to find them, you can search for "cool white 5V COB LED strip", "NE555 timer chip", "ULN2003 or ULN2803" for the darlington transistor array chips (7- or 8-channel, respectively, either will do).
You should try and insert a 'pause' at the point where the separation of the two clear parts is. As the timing is a bit odd at that point.
I had a similar thought. The lights jump at that point.
pack the voids around the LED's with cotton wool it helps difuse the light
That could help if you want to use the original artist's lighting design.
I made one that is about 4 feet tall. and right now its red white and blue.
Wow, sounds awesome!
That is really awesome... but.. you should have a blank spot in the timer. Where a light would be visible but is behind the top and bottom sections mid ring. The skip across is jarring.
You've done an excellent job on this build and the changes you've added to the design really does make it look like the onscreen version. I look forward to seeing what you will build next.
Thank you!
very nice, question did you upload your modifications?
Hey @mistake man i really like the warp core build and i was wondering if you would make all the parts and sell them ? I would love to build one myself but i have no experience or the resources to print one
Hi! The core I built is based on models by another artist, so I won't sell them. But, it looks like the original artist does offer printed parts for sale, including all the parts you need to light it! I didn't realize this when I recorded the video, otherwise I would have mentioned it.
Here is a link to the artist's store page:
www.etsy.com/shop/warpspeed3dprinting/?etsrc=sdt
I case the link doesn't work, you should be able to find it by searching for WarpSpeed3DPrinting, and the shop owner's name is Jason Anderson.
That looks incredible! I don't know how bright it is, but I could see using it as an actual lamp, not jist a display piece.
Thank you! It's not bright enough to light a room for normal use, but it could provide some cool ambience to a dark room.
Oh yeah, the TNG Enterprise-D Technical Manual is awesome.
I was thinking of that when you were talking about images in the beginning, it shows you everything.
This thing is awesome, i want one, have no (3D) printer and all that, not gonna happen, but i want one.
You know, you should build a base with the railing along side it, with a hidden speaker in the bottom, and a button so you can turn it on and off.
You have the Manual there so should be possible to model it if nobody has yet.
The model could definitely be converted into a diorama of the engineering set. It's not really what I wanted here, but that would be cool. Especially with some figures of Geordi and Data.
Looks great!
Thank you!
You should check out EL wires for your lights, would be smoother and you don't have individual LEDs so no not spots.
EL wire is really cool. I considered using it here, but what I saw was probably too dim for what I wanted.
Beautify,
Thank you!
Very nice
Thank you!
Nice work! Subbed.
Thank you, and welcome!
Are you planning to upload your remixed files?
Where this design is based on another artist's work, I don't feel comfortable publicly distributing the files. But if you're interested in the resin-printable versions, send me an email and we can figure something out. (You can find my email in the About info on my channel.)
that is a really beautiful build! If it could be scaled down a little bit, it would make a cool centerpiece for a book nook
Thank you! You can scale down the STL files before you print them, but you can't really scale down the LED strips. So you would need to figure out another way to light it.
It really needs an optional sound effect (zwoop-zwoop) and a way to speed up the warp chamber at random intervals because you don't know what those crazy people on the bridge are going to do..
does it float? xD
Unfortunately, this model requires zero g to float.
That's really cool
Thank you!