Cybersword Mega Man Battle Network by Snoopy3195

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

This is a scale prop of the cybersword from the Mega Man Battle Network series on the Gameboy Advance designed with led lighting of the blade in mind. Note: Currently I have not printed the whole blade so I can't 100% confirm that there won't be changes need, but the 3 segments so far work.
You will need to print two of these parts: upper core left and right, lower core left and right, core top, either side, side upper and lower, and button holder. Side upper and lower are the side part split into two. You will need to print 7 copies of the blade segment part. To aid in the alignment of the parts, there is a 5mm diameter and 6mm diameter pin. For this pin to fit, you will need to scale it down in your slicer of choice, I scaled my pins to 90% for a snug but removable pin. Parts like the handle and the blade pieces may require some sanding to fit, the part "blade sanding support block" can be slid into a blade piece to keep it in shape.
Printed assembly:
My recommended order of assembly is to combine the upper core pieces and the handle, and tape them tightly together. Use this assembly to align the four lower core pieces together and glue the lower core together. Then glue a upper core left and right together twice, so the upper core is in two pieces and glue the handle to one of them. Glue your two buttons and the switch to their holders and figure out where you want them on the handle. Glue the 12 magnets into the upper core, making sure all the magnets are in the same direction. Do any other mounting of parts you want to do know as once it is glued together, it will be much more difficult to do. Glue the two upper core pieces and the lower core together at the same time. Glue the side upper and lower together for each side, and then glue them to the core. Then glue the two core tops on to the core.
Now onto the blade. Glue the 12 magnets into the blade base and sand the core tops, until the blade base can slide between them. Your two 860mm led strips should be joined by wire at the top at this point. Start by gluing the strips down, starting with the blade tip part. Then glue the next segment to the tip and the leds to the segment. Continue this process from tip to base, until the blade is assembled and the leds are in place.
Electronic assembly:
Note: if you use a different feather, the pins may be different.
Solder the headers to the featherwing and the feather. Solder jumper cables to the featherwing to pins G and EN (next to the speaker and reset switch), a y splitter to gnd (longer row of pins, fourth from the side with the reset button), and to pins A1 and A2 (same side as GND, 5 and 6 from the side with the reset button. Solder two jumper cables to each button and the switch and connect the switch to G and EN and both buttons to gnd with one going to A1 and the other to A2. You may need to make an adapter for the led using a connector that came with the strip and a 3-pin jst-ph connector. Once everything is plugged in, connect the feather to your computer and upload the program. The button to A1 will turn the leds on and off, the button to A2 will cycle between blade modes. The blade modes are remembered and can be cycled with the blade off. The switch will turn the feather on and off, but what mode is set is not remembered. Currently there are three modes: normal, protoman, and darksword. I will add how to add additional modes later.
Parts needed:
Feather M4 express, other feather boards may work
Feather wing propmaker
2m of leds 3.3-5v and neopixel compatible, I used 60 led/m but you can use 144. 144 leds will require editing the program, but is easy to do.
2x 6mm tactile button switches
spdt slide switch- not essential, allows the feather to go into a low power mode
male-female jumper/dupont cables
Headers- male and female to mount the featherwing to the feather
PS: I have almost certainly forgotten something, I will reply to comments and update this if you find anything. Pictures of the completed print will be added later.