Ironman Inspired Nanoarcreactor

This is my take on the Ironman Nanoarcreactor inspired by Avengers Infinity War it features a pulsing light effect using code created by Adafruit then modified. All the parts were purchased from Adafruit and a full parts list is included in one of the steps.

The model was printed with a 0.4mm nozzle at 0.1mm layer height.

I printed the entire piece in PLA+ so the light diffuses where ever it's not painted/covered.

I've made allowance for a small battery so this piece doesn't need any external power sources but you may want to consider connecting one up if you want to glow all day.

I covered the metallic looking pieces with adhesive aluminium foil tape and cut away all the pieces I wanted to expose.

For the gold finish, I use mostly gold leaf. Even though it's pretty messy to work with, this finish leaves a fine layer of real metal instead of paint.

The electronics circuit diagram was made using Fritzing. You can use the fritzing app to open the diagram if you want to check how everything was connected.

The parts list includes the following:

1. Adafruit Trinket Micro 5v (Use a trinket MO if you want to work on a cap touch function to turn it on),

2. Neopixel Ring 12 x 5050 RGB,

Used for the white core

3. Neopixel RGB LED Strip - White

Used for the coloured outer strip of lights

4. A switch

5. Lithium Ion Polymer Battery 3.7v 350mAh

6. Micro-LiPo USB LiIon LiPoly Charger V1 - PID: 1304

Assemble the parts according to the diagram before programming the controller. I recommend connecting the battery and power part of the circuit after the microcontroller has been programmed.

The Arduino code for this circuit is all attached in the file listed in this step. You will need to install Arduino first as well as the Neopixel Library as per the instructions provided on the following link:

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-ide-se...

Note there are 2 strips programmed to provide the lighting effect. The centre ring provides the white light and the second strip provides a colour that bleeds into the white light.

The colour is made up of 3 colours per Neopixel (Red, Green, Blue). You'll note the code substitutes the Blue colour with "alpha" which fluctuates and cause the pulsing effect. Red and Green are set to 0 respectively.

If you replace the Red and Green "0" values with alpha and add a fraction to alpha, this will change the intensity of the other lights.

e.g. Blue would be (0, 0, alpha).

Setting the colour to pink would be (alpha, 0, alpha/2). In this case, blue will always be half the intensity of red.

For the final step, you'll need to connect up the power source. BE VERY VERY CAREFULL.

When cutting the power wires, make sure you cut and wire one at a time.

I connected up the +ve (red) terminal first then turned off the switch to limit the chances of me accidentally letting the -ve lead (black) short the circuit somewhere.

Note all the video files were made using an iPhone in case that helps trying to playback anything.