User avatar
By Holydohnut
#4963907
Hi All. You may have seen my post in the trap section where I created the electronics for a trap using a raspberry pi pico. While that project was great fun, it's done now! So what's next? Gotta be the PKE! 😁

Now, a lot of PKE's I've seen seem to only have 3 settings. Wings\arms down, halfway up, or fully up. I have an idea to have a trigger on the handle which controls a potentiometer which will allow you to have the wings at any angle.

Here's what I have so far



I think that's the correct sequence for a GB1 meter. But I have a really daft question. Should the wing lights be green or yellow? I'm not exactly colourblind but I do have an issue with certain colours and I cannot for the life of me make these out!

Cheers

Rik
User avatar
By Ryudou
#4963930
It’s great to see more work on PKE electronics. I still have an old PKE casting lying around, so I’ll be interested in seeing how this goes for you and possibly following your example.

I still have some notes I jotted down from cylandprops.com (which seems to be gone now, but you can still find it through the wayback machine) when I was planning to build one. According to him, the light order was 3,5,7,4,1,6,2 in GB1 and 3,1,6,4,7,5,2 in GB2 (with lights numbered from the inside out).

People usually have the wings able to go from 0 to 45 to 90 degrees because that’s how the actual prop worked: using the finger-bridge switch on the right for 45 degrees and the one on the left for 90; but a fully controllable angle could be interesting.

As for your color question, I am red-green colorblind so I can’t help much, but I believe the prop just had clear plastic caps with incandescent bulbs behind them, so if you’re using LEDs yellow is probably closer.

Good luck with your project and let us know how it goes!
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User avatar
By Holydohnut
#4963939
Thank you! I will definitely keep posting updates. 🙂 I've ordered some clear looking, flat cap, yellow LED's, and some green ones as well for the screen. Unfortunately they'll not now be delivered til Jan! I have until then to decide how to do the sound. I've seen with circuitpython and a cheap audio board you can play mp3 files. I hooked all that up (already had the audio board) and it worked great. But it seems overkill for this project!

Thanks again!

Rik
By abaka
#4964099
Always delighted to see some new options for PKE's. There's a real gap for accurate PKE electronics.

GhostGuy who offered the last PKE kit and incidentally still to this day a PKE kit that really holds up did have a mode on his kit that included the potentiometer being able to adjust the angle of the wings, but as said above.....The true function of the prop was 45 or 90 degree.

As for the wings. They were incandescent bulbs installed behind acryllic pipe as a lens, so yellow would be best matching.
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By abaka
#4964102
The Leds can also be just yellow LEDS....They will be behind the green screen.....a similar led to the wings will probably give the best effect on the screen....Green leds behnd a green screen may not transfer as well if that makes sense.

Realistically the only coloured LEDS needed are for the Red/Yellow/Green under the screen that correspond and the red rectangle leds above the contact switches.

C
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User avatar
By Holydohnut
#4964142
Well in a true Christmas miracle, the leds arrived yesterday! So I've started to print the meter itself now. My first prints have been a little problematic, but they're getting there now! I have all the parts for the wings and have just made myself a wiring loom. I suspect printing will take a while as I want to amend the design quite a bit to accommodate my electronics as opposed to the original ones.

I confess, I'd forgotten all about the lights UNDER the screen! Do they come on in any particular fashion? IE do they swap or anything as the wings extend? That would be pretty easy to code.

Thanks guys!

Rik
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User avatar
By Holydohnut
#4964143
Just had a look at a few built ones on line and there seems to be no real consensus. So I think that's what I'm going to do! I'll have the green led light when there's little activity, switch to Amber as it gets faster, and then red when it's at full pelt.
User avatar
By Ryudou
#4964145
Progress is looking great so far!

For the 3 lights just below the screen, the way it was documented by Cyland was that the red one in the middle is illuminated whenever the power is on. The other two are controlled by the switch just below them (which also controls the pattern of the screen lights): the yellow one on the left is illuminated whenever the switch is to the left and the green one on the right is illuminated whenever the switch is to the right.

There are also 2 more lights just above the finger-bridge switches on the face, which each illuminate whenever the associated finger-bridge switch below it (which also controls the wings) is bridged.

EDIT: Just saw your latest post, sounds like a good way to go that would make sense for how those lights might function in-universe.
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By Holydohnut
#4964462
Hi all. Not huge amounts of progress recently as I've been really struggling with the 3D prints. I've only managed to find one model that actually looks like the real meter and it's a bit of a mess. As well as amending pieces for the electronics I've used, (which I fully expected to do and did with the Trap I made as well) I've also had to patch the 3d models where the mesh has failed. Had I printed them as is, I would have ended up with very weak pieces at best, or in many cases, with actual holes in!

But I'm finally getting somewhere now so here's a couple of progress videos. I think it's about as far as it can go now without another servo. (On order but the seller is away)


By elussya
#4964868
Holydohnut wrote: December 23rd, 2021, 3:58 am Well in a true Christmas miracle, the leds arrived yesterday! So I've started to print the meter itself now. My first prints have been a little problematic, but they're getting there now! I have all the parts for the wings and have just made myself a wiring loom. I suspect printing will take a while as I want to amend the design quite a bit to accommodate my electronics as opposed to the original ones.

I confess, I'd forgotten all about the lights UNDER the screen! Do they come on in any particular fashion? IE do they swap or anything as the wings extend? That would be pretty easy to code.

Thanks guys!

Rik
I think I'll be following a bit in your footsteps with my build. I have a original Sears Roebuck Iona model coming this coming week that I'll be drafting up a 3d model that's actually accurate to the prop off of- then using a Raspberry Pi Pico as well.

For the screen 'lights' I was debating going with a small LCD screen to pull off the Afterlife screen appearance. Your project has been seriously inspirational, cheers :-)
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User avatar
By Holydohnut
#4964920
Well... She's finished!



The potentiometer works just like I wanted. Allowing me to have the wings at any angle. There a little delay in the video which is purely down the the battery dying. It's currently a 1200mah which lasts about an hour, but I have a 3600mah on order. Also the lights at the front I was able to set up so they go green-Amber-red as the danger increases! 😂

Model issues aside, this was a really fun build! Now I've done a trap and a PKE Meter, I guess there's only one thing left! 😁
elussya, gamera1968 liked this
By elussya
#4964952
Holydohnut wrote: January 7th, 2022, 12:07 pm Thank you! I'll be very interested if you can make a more accurate 3D model. This one... Isn't great! 😂
I'll scan in the body shell and then digitally sculpt in the add-ons. I think it's the best route for optimizing for the internals :-)
I wouldn't be going that route if I wasn't unimpressed with the free and pay-for 3d models out there :-/
None of them look quite perfect- plus it'll let me play with allowing for a Afterlife or GB1/2 look :-)
Figure I'll start shopping for the motors and LED's once I get the base body in to scan and measure the heck out of.
Your build has definitely convinced me to go the Pi Pico route, along with a rechargeable internal battery.
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By wcfj78
#4973614
I actually found some sound modules on Amazon and saw the recommendation about just recording the pke sound from the video game, looping it and saving that as an mp3 file. Going to try that.
User avatar
By mardin_chatzuk
#4973654
The PKE in Spirits Unleashed (the new video game) has movie-accurate sounds. I bet those sound files could be extracted from the PC version.
By elussya
#4974448
Finally at the point of building. @Holydohnut, is there any chance of you sharing your code?

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