Light Up Riddler Cane: 3D Printed

This instructable will inform you on the process it takes to create a light up riddler cane prop for a Halloween costume. The design for this cane is provided in a link below and is a remix of a previous model allowing for the LEDs to be threaded through the inside without having to create any additional Holes.

The following is a list of materials that is required to build this prop. (sorry for the lack of images for this section i built this as i went so i never had all the parts in one place)

Devices you will need

3D printer + plastic (OR) Your favorite online site to purchase the 3Dparts

Hot glue gun

Dremmel or drill

Soldering tools (Soldering Iron, Solder)

Items you will need

Plastic for question mark (translucent green) https://goo.gl/1CX9Kj

Gold spraypaint (local HW store)

1" Dowel rod by whatever length is appropriate to your height (local HW store)

Arduino and their standalone breadboard components or an arduino nano. (https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Breadboard-Arduino-Compatible/)

9V and its connector

wire

solder

Switches of your choosing

Buttons of your choosing

Capactors + Resistors

Heat shrink tubing

Electrical tape

5v stepdown curcit or make your own ( https://www.instructables.com/id/5v-Regulator/)

Addressable LEDs Such as Adafruit's Neopixals. ( http://www.adafruit.com/category/168)

To create the Cane top what you will need is a 3D printer the models are provided in the link. I printed mine with PLA translucent green this is convenient as the led colors shows. So you're going to want a translucent color but the color is up to you if you want to have just green lights and clear cane that is also possible. There are five objects to printed mine with a raft make sure that they will be level.

If you do not have a 3D printer you are totally able to use these models on any website that allows you to use the community printer or purchase time on, shuch as 3dhubs.com.

Once all the parts are printed you can line them up how to make sure that they all fit and clean up any inconsistencies that do not allow them to be connected.

Now it is time to prototype the board

For the interrupt buttons are connect with 1k pull up resistors to pins 2 and 3.

The switch to change between swipe mode and rainbow mode is connect to pins 4 and 5 with pull up resistors with the center positions on my switch being no connections.

The first neopixal is connected to pin 6 (it is missing a 330 ohm resistor in the schematic) with the DataOut connected to the next pixal's DataIn along with power and ground.

Then rails are powered and grounded and the code is run.

I will not go into full detail how the code works but in general the output from 6 pin to the LED's

There are two momentary switches that allows interrupts on Pin 3 and 2 that activate the Theater chase on the LEDs in red and green.

The other switches between the swipe of green and a rainbow colors through. I mainly use the chase of green because I thought it looked cooler but when on the dance floor I like to use the full rainbow color.

Now that the code is working time to go to the next step

Take your bread-boarded circuit and place then solder it on a perfboard or if you were smart and used an arduino nano and saved yourself lots of time.

You then need to cut off the top of the period and start cutting holes in the top to fit the switches. Hot glue them in place and wire them up to your board. I also hot glued 3 female header pins to plug in the LEDs form the top of the cane.

Pretty simple spray the dowel rod, you could also add a coat of white primer first if you want a nice coat. i also wrapped electrical tape around so that the parts would fit snug around the rod. I also cut a bit out of the rod so that the pixels would not be smashed by the rod when it is inserted.

Lay out the strips of the neopixels so that you make sure you have the right size. Solder them together and and thread them through the can pieces. MAKE SURE DATA IN IS ONE THEN BOTTOM OF THE QUESTION MARK. try to have all of the LEDs face outwards.

Once all LEDs are in place glue the cane together with superglue/hotglue in-between the pieces OR if you have a big enough printer you can print the entire thing in one go, but threading the led will be hard. Once that is done test it again with your circuit.

Glue the part you cut off with the 9v and circuit inside. Then put it on the rod below the top in a position that looks good.

That's about it put it all together and be the best riddler you can be. Add the goggles and a question mark painted shirt and you are now the riddler.

Have fun!