Back to the future mind reading helmet

Last crawled date: 1 year, 10 months ago

Here is my Doc Brown's mind reading helmet from 'Back to the future'. I absolutely love this film and I could find a lot of props for 3D printing but not this helmet, so here it is.

I'm not going to lie to you, it's not easy project, but for a massive geek and movie fan like me it was totally worth it. On the 3D model all parts fit perfectly, but it's difficult to put all the parts symmetrically exactly as in the model, so I had to use good old hair dryer technique for couple of connectors. (For those who are new in 3D printing, you can use hair dryer to warm up the plastic part and then reshape it slightly).

One the pictures is color coded and colors correspond to the file names so it should make assembly easier. The main coils can be screw to the headband and I glued all the connectors between cylinders. I glued them in this order: blue, yellow, pink, red and green.
(3 red connectors needed hair dryer technique, but you might do better than me)

There is also file perspex_tube.stl and you can print it in clear PLA or use clear perspex tube. I bought 10mm (outside diameter) long tube and then i cut it into 90mm long cylinders. I think it look slightly better with clear perspex, but of course it's more work.

On the main coils i wind few turns of grey cable and I glue it permanently. On the clear perspex I wind few turns or single core red wire and glued it too.

the order of assembly: main coil (with grey cable) then glue 10mm perspex tube inside, then slot clear_cylinder (printer in clear PLA). Clear cylinder will go inside inside_cylinder and all that will go into outside_cylinder. All connectors are glued to outside_cylinder.

Electronics: Solder 220 ohm resistors to positive leg of 5mm white LED (protective resistor) and then solder cables to both legs of LED. Slot LED into perspex tube and tidy up wires using clear cable ties. Connect all to Arduino Nano and 9V battery. All will fit inside the Arduino_box and you can then clip it to your belt. There is a hole for mini on/off rocker switch. Schematic for connection is attached and arduino code too. The code randomly switch LED's and it's my addition to the project :)

It's a big project, but if you decide to go ahead and make I would appreciate pictures and any comments or suggestions of course.