-
Boba Fett Chest Display Circuit: An In-Depth Analysis
A breakdown of the glowly lights on the front of boba fett's suit.
-
Wyze Camera – Mini Butterbot – Rick & Morty
New baby at home so I am getting some use out of an old IP camera I placed in the nursery. My wife and I enjoyed it so much, I looked into adding a second. What I found was so cute, I 3D printed some arms and gave some wire touches. The IP camera I was using was a Foscam FI8910W with a resolution of 640*480px, full pan/tilt, and 3rd party app compatibility. Old enough that it has no cloud features and if you want to access remotly, you better know how to add exceptions to your firewall. Simply typing ip camera into amazon, the first non-sponsored result turned out…
-
EMF Reader – Assembly Notes for Wire Clips
This is to help out folks making my DIY kit. I took some photos while assembling my latest batch of EMF Readers. Routing the wires can be tricky. My method uses spare 22 gauge solid core wire, a soldering iron, and hot glue. Makes the wires stay put. Kits for sale! https://westabyelectronics.com/store/shop/ Click the infographic for a larger version.
-
Ghostbusters 2016 Proton Pack
Proton Packs are special for me. A proton pack was the first costume prop I ever made and was very much a junk build. Working light and sound circuits and only the alice frame is screen accurate. I worked on mine in parallel with my brother, so we could both be Ghostbusters for Halloween 2008. I have been making props and commission circuits ever since. My original proton pack took me 3 months to research and construct, start to finish. So when my wife told me she wanted to be Ghostbusters for Halloween 2016, my reaction was to skip the proton pack for her costume. Stick to the jumpsuit and…
-
Laser Tag Take-Over
Howdy folks, quick announcement from Robert Bontrager (Windjammer) and myself (thatdecade). Windjammer recently reached out to me asking if I would fully take over our team developments. I agreed and intend to breath some life into some old projects. Details to come! Robert and I together are known for creating some amazing lasertag compatible equipment; the zombie sensor, echo base, and the handheld hosting station. I designed the circuits and Robert wrote the software. I will now be taking over the software side too. http://lt-mmo.blogspot.com/ On my own, I have designed and sold a number of LTAR display designs. I look forward to what updates I can make to…
-
Energy Sword 2015
This is the new Energy Sword for 2015. Featuring dynamic and reactive lighting, motion activated sound effects, and an internal rechargeable battery. Videos on the bottom of this post show off the lighting and sound effects. I built my original energy sword design with the help of Sean Bradely in 2009. This work was expanded by Joshua Kane in 2013 / 2014. I took Joshua’s work to the next level with multiple animation modes with reactive and multi fade lighting. Kudos for the sculpting and paint job still goes to Sean Bradely. Note: I abandoned the custom circuit that I detailed in a previous post and instead went with inexpensive circuit modules from Adafruit and Sparkfun.…
-
Ammo Counter Assembly Instructions
DIY assembly guide for the ammo counter. If you ordered an unassembled circuit kit, this is the instruction page for you. Assembly order is from the center outward to minimize solder bridges. Keep some solder removal braid handy to remove any bridges between pads. BACK OF THE PCB Install the IC, making sure to orient with pin1 indication on the PCB Install the three resistors. 2x 10k on the bottom 100 ohm on the top Install the LEDs and bend into position to match your install location. LED on top center position (unmarked) LED on bottom marked position. Note: The LED polarity is not marked on the board. See the…
-
Supernatural EMF Reader
This is a summary post of my finished “revision 1” EMF Reader from Supernatural. For revisions 2 and 3, please email me for the latest instructions. Below you will find the following sections: Description and Pictures Part List Rough Step by Step Build Instructions Hello Future Reader! This guide is outdated as of 2018. If you purchased a kit from me, you have the 0718 revision. Watch this youtube build video instead of following the guide on this page.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce4PJZl9T2Y&t=1s&ab_channel=DustinWestaby Kits for sale! https://westabyelectronics.com/store/shop/ Description and Background: The EMF Reader in Supernatural is an excellent project for people like me that have some electrical knowledge. What I did was design a…
-
New Beginnings – Sword 2014
Announcing a new sword electronics design and a partnership. I have been working alone the past years on an updated energy sword circuit design. Something that would allow me finer control of the LEDs without the burden of soldering the old massive LED arrays. Details of my 2009 sword design. Joshua Kane had been working independently on his own sword controller circuit, build completely from arduino modules. You can see a write-up of his original project here: Stunning Halo 3 Costumes and Energy Sword The outer shell of our both swords were made by an amazing sculptor named Sean Bradley. It was through Sean that Josh and I met each other; and…
-
LTAR Display
I love the lazer tag augmented reality (LTAR) tagger. When playing unhosted grab and go game types, your choices are between the LTAR and the LTX taggers for 25 health gametypes. The LTAR handles much nicer in my opinion, but without an iphone the LTAR lacks any indicator of health / shields remaining during gameplay. To solve this, I wrote some software to put on my existing ammo counter circuit. The software allows my circuit to sync with the LTAR during gameplay, or at least anticipate an accurate count of health and shields remaining. This post will serve as a guide of assembling the ammo counter circuit, modifying the LTAR, and…
