While I was waiting for my damn printer repair parts to get shipped, I started poking around the internet for more Titanfall ideas. Jurica Pranjic on MyMiniFactory was nice enough to share his rendition of the Titanfall Arc Grenade and when I found it, I decided I needed to have some fun with it. His version is a static prop, so I set about hollowing it out and redesigning it to accept the electronics I had in mind. I sent him a quick message and he was okay with the idea, so I’ll start breaking down the changes.
Each of the eighteen arc ‘plugs’ has been bored out to accept a 5mm discrete Neopixel LED (or comparable WS2812 LED).
The middle of the grenade has been fitted with posts on the interior that snugly slot a 9v battery inside the grenade, with enough extra room for a wire lead connector.
I went with a 9v instead of the 12v A23 battery like what I used in the Data Knife because it’d have a longer lifespan and the current draw on the batteries when neopixels first turn on can be significant enough to cause some hiccups. I changed the top handle to screw down with four M2 screws onto the body of the grenade so that the 9v could be easily accessed and swapped out.
I also changed the top handle to screw down with four M2 screws onto the body of the grenade so that the 9v could be easily accessed and swapped out.
An Arduino (probably a 5v Adafruit Trinket) will be hot-glued to the inside of the grenade, along with a piezo buzzer for sound effects. Two holes were added to the top of the grenade – one for a slide on-off switch, and one for a tactile push-button that will ‘arm’ the grenade.I also added six alignment holes to make sure the grenade halves keyed together properly during assembly.
Printing went pretty easy, and I’ve been sanding and doing a bit of early cleanup:
I should have some proof-of-concept breadboarding done by tomorrow with the LEDs, but this looks like it’s going well.
