3d Printing a Transformers Prop (Matrix of Leadership) _ How-To _ I Like To Make Stuff

**The Making of a Prop: A Journey from 3D Modeling to Electronics**

I began my project by creating a digital model of the prop, which was a dome-shaped piece with magnets on either side. I had envisioned using holes that were drilled to accept the magnets but didn't go ahead with modeling these holes as I thought it would be more challenging than necessary. Instead, I used a drill bit that matched the size of the magnets and attempted to create shallow holes for them to fit into. The process was not without its difficulties, and I found myself using super glue to fill the gaps between the drill bits and the magnet's surfaces. This method ultimately resulted in magnets that didn't sit perfectly flat against each other.

To improve this design, I decided to use a two-part epoxy mixture for drilling deeper holes. I knew that this would allow me to create more precise control over the depth of the holes and make it easier to place the magnets at specific depths. The epoxy worked well, but it did require some patience as I waited for it to dry before proceeding.

With the improved design in place, I moved on to attaching the handles to the prop. This was a crucial step, as I wanted all the pieces to be securely attached to a single plate so that the dome on the back could be easily removed without connecting to any other components or electronics. To achieve this, I used CA glue and carefully placed each handle in position before securing it with additional glue.

**Sanding and Measuring**

One of the key steps in creating the prop was ensuring that all surfaces were perfectly flat. This involved sanding down the bottom of each piece to create a smooth surface. I also took the time to measure the gaps between the panels, using my calipers to enforce these measurements as I attached them. By doing so, I was able to achieve a seamless fit without any noticeable gaps or overlaps.

**Assembly and Electronics**

With all the components in place, it was time to add the electronics. I had decided to mount the switch on the handle itself, tracing its outline with a sharp knife and drilling a hole for it. To accommodate this, I removed a section of material using a drill bit, allowing the switch to fit snugly inside.

Next, I set up all the electronics in place on the backside, securing them with hot glue. This served as an insulator for the components and made it easy to remove them if needed. To power the prop, I used a two-sided velcro strip, applying contact cement to both sides before attaching them together.

**The Final Touches**

Once everything was in place, I snapped on the battery pack and secured it with the velcro. Finally, I lined up the back panel with the magnets and attached it to the prop.

Throughout this project, I learned a great deal about 3D modeling, electronics, and prop-making. While there were certainly challenges along the way, I'm incredibly happy with how the final product turned out. This prop was my first attempt at a full-scale project that spanned multiple stages, from digital modeling to electronics, and I'm excited to tackle even more complex projects in the future.

**Conclusion**

The experience of making this prop has been invaluable, and I hope that others will find it useful as they work on their own projects. The code for the electronics will be available on my GitHub page, where you can access it if needed. As always, I encourage you to subscribe to my channel and explore other videos for unique content.

Please note that the 3D files used in this project were not well-suited for release due to their poor quality.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today we're going to 3d print a prop from my childhood I fully admit that I'm a huge nerd that grew up in the 80s and I loved the original transformers cartoon I remember seeing the movie and I found out that that movie is coming out on blu-ray next month I'm really excited to see it in case you want to pick it up I'll have a link down in the description but I thought to celebrate that I would actually make a prop from that movie now that's only half the reason I wanted to do this I also wanted to learn a new 3d modeling software fusion 360 so we're going to dig into that now and make a prop fully 3d printed and then finish it up so it doesn't look like it was a 3d print at first I traced a flat image to get the overall shape and proportions correct then I brought that in diffusion and extruded it to start the modeling process I'm not going to go through the whole process here because I was learning the tool as I was going and didn't do it in the most efficient way but I really enjoyed fusion now that I got my head around it and will be using it a lot in the future I printed each one of the pieces for the project out one at a time but the overall print time was probably 35 or 40 hours for the entire project after each piece printed I had to do quite a bit of sanding to get rid of the build lines and get it as smooth as I could I couldn't get rid of all of it so I used some filler primer and did several coats to fill in the gaps in between the layers it's really important that after you spray this on and let it dry you do some sanding and do multiple coats until you get it as smooth as you want it to be all of these different pieces had build lines in them because there were a lot of different types of shapes the curves and the domes definitely had a lot of easy to see build lines I printed this piece out of a transparent filament so the light would shine through it later and it came out great all the build lines got filled in with primer just like I said before or sanded and filled again before I took it to paint I use my brand new paint booth to put on several coats of warm spray paint and I probably ended up doing five or six coats before I got a good solid finish after I was happy with the paint and went over the whole thing with some satin clear coat and here's everything all finished painting I think I've got all the pieces ready for assembly but before we do that I want to talk about this process for just a second a lot of people have the misconception that 3d printing is like you click a button and then you have a finished thing and in this case and in the case of a lot of props that is not true in fact this project so far has been one of the more time-intensive things I've done in a really long time there's a bunch of reasons why but I think it's important for you to understand the modeling took a long time even though I was learning fusion at the same time I was working on this project but I had to model the pieces and then make changes and modify the models I had to print out pieces that sometimes failed or were just wrong and so the printing process took quite a while and even after I had all the pieces printed I realized that there were a lot of things that I didn't add to the model that I should have once they were all finished printing each piece had to be sanded and primed and sanded and painted and that took a lot longer than I thought I had to do the electronics figure out the code for the animation which I'll show you in just a second but I want you to understand that this 3d printing process actually takes a lot of time and I'm not saying that to dissuade you from doing it in fact I'm trying to encourage you if you find yourself running into roadblocks and having to redo things and realizing that it's taking way longer than you thought it would just be encouraged that that is entirely normal in this type of a project okay let's look at the pieces and the electronics off camera I modeled a few more pieces that I want to show you I did a bunch of these little detailed pieces and these are just going to get stuck to the outside of these panels just to add some more interest another thing is that I modeled these little wedges and these are going to attach to the inside of this sphere as a place for me to mount some magnets so that this whole prop can snap together having a place to mount the magnets is just one of the things I forgot to do in the initial modeling process so this is kind of a way around that the last thing before we start putting it together let's talk about the electronics really quickly the electronics here are really simple but I just want to walk through them really quickly the code will be linked down in the description I've got a neopixel ring here that's got 16 pixels on it I've got an Adafruit trinket which is just a tiny Arduino they're really inexpensive and embedding it in a project like this is no big deal the whole system is run off 5 volts here with double-a rechargeable batteries they have a temporary button to activate this but it's going to be swapped out with something else later the only thing that really happens here is when you press the button you get an animation of light and then the light kind of swirls around while you're holding it down and then when let go of the button it all fades out I used two Sharpie to finish adding detail to these panels both the fine and the normal tip it was way faster than painting and ended up looking just fine I also use some CA glue to add these details to the panel's in no specific position but just where I thought they look good I also use CA glue to hold these posts in on the inside of the dome these are where I'll put the magnets now of course it would have been better to model these in place and to model holes in them to accept the magnets but I didn't do that so I had to use a drill bit that was the same size and try to drill a very shallow hole to put these magnets in I filled them with super glue and then forced in the magnets they fit alright but not as well as they would have if I had modeled the correct depth for the magnet to sit in then it would have been setting on a flat bottom and would have been perfectly flat on the top edge I put a dot of white paint right in the center of both of these magnets and then I set on the mating piece when I push down just barely it transferred some of that paint to the mating piece so I knew where the center of those holes should be I followed the same process here and drilled really shallow holes but instead of superglue this time I mixed up the two-part epoxy this mixes up thicker with the idea that it would fill some of the gap and make it easier to place the magnets at the certain depth that I wanted them to be and it actually ended up working quite a bit better I had to wait a couple minutes for it to dry but then it was ready to go I tested the piece and even though they didn't lay perfectly flat against each other they did line up really well and that was good then it was time to glue on the handles and I just did that with some more CA glue I was really conscious here to try to make all of the pieces attached to this one plate so that the dome on the back could be pulled away without it connecting to any other pieces or electronics I glued these in place and just held them while the glue dried and then it was good to go it was actually a really big relief to see these pieces come together and fit even with the handles in place in the digital model I measured the space in between these panels and then I used my calipers to enforce that spacing as I attach them I used some super glue on the bottom of each one of these pieces to hold them in place one thing I will say that it was really important to go back and sand the bottom of these pieces so that they were perfectly flat and they would lay flat against the surface I had to glue in this crystal piece before I could finish putting on these panels because it didn't fit to drop it right down in I got a roughly centered in the area before adding the last two panels on the outside I had a big nerd out moment once I got it to this state because it actually looked like the thing that I wanted it to look like it was super cool the last thing for me to figure out was where to put the switch and I decided to put it on the handle right on the outside of the dome on the back I traced the outline of the switch and then used a sharp knife to score that line I used to drill bit to quickly remove a lot of the material I really wanted to knock out a whole section so that the switch would fit right down on the inside I did a few test fits and cut out a little bit more material to make sure that there was room for the wire to run through then I set all of the electronics in place on the backside and use hot glue to hold everything there hot glue acts as an insulator for the electronics and it makes it really easy to pull these out in case I ever need to redo anything or replace anything to mount the battery pack I used this two-sided velcro strip I put down some Barge contact cement both on the prop and on the strip and let them dry for about five minutes after that when you stick the two pieces together they immediately bond and it was finally complete I just snapped on the battery pack and held it in place with the velcro and then lined up the back panel with the magnets and put it in place I learned a ton of stuff from this project and there are a lot of things that I will do different next time but overall I am super happy with how this turned out it's the first time I've made a prop that started in 3d modelling and went all the way through to finish and electronics and I'm really glad that I've covered that gamut now I think the next one's going to be even better I'm not going to release the 3d files for this because honestly they're not very good and I have to fix a bunch of stuff but I will put the code for the electronics on my github in case that's useful for you I hope you like this one as much as I do let me know what you think of it down in the comments I've got lots of other videos for you to check out don't forget to subscribe and my second channel is kind of non project related stuff that's it for this week guys thanks for watching I'll see you next timehey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today we're going to 3d print a prop from my childhood I fully admit that I'm a huge nerd that grew up in the 80s and I loved the original transformers cartoon I remember seeing the movie and I found out that that movie is coming out on blu-ray next month I'm really excited to see it in case you want to pick it up I'll have a link down in the description but I thought to celebrate that I would actually make a prop from that movie now that's only half the reason I wanted to do this I also wanted to learn a new 3d modeling software fusion 360 so we're going to dig into that now and make a prop fully 3d printed and then finish it up so it doesn't look like it was a 3d print at first I traced a flat image to get the overall shape and proportions correct then I brought that in diffusion and extruded it to start the modeling process I'm not going to go through the whole process here because I was learning the tool as I was going and didn't do it in the most efficient way but I really enjoyed fusion now that I got my head around it and will be using it a lot in the future I printed each one of the pieces for the project out one at a time but the overall print time was probably 35 or 40 hours for the entire project after each piece printed I had to do quite a bit of sanding to get rid of the build lines and get it as smooth as I could I couldn't get rid of all of it so I used some filler primer and did several coats to fill in the gaps in between the layers it's really important that after you spray this on and let it dry you do some sanding and do multiple coats until you get it as smooth as you want it to be all of these different pieces had build lines in them because there were a lot of different types of shapes the curves and the domes definitely had a lot of easy to see build lines I printed this piece out of a transparent filament so the light would shine through it later and it came out great all the build lines got filled in with primer just like I said before or sanded and filled again before I took it to paint I use my brand new paint booth to put on several coats of warm spray paint and I probably ended up doing five or six coats before I got a good solid finish after I was happy with the paint and went over the whole thing with some satin clear coat and here's everything all finished painting I think I've got all the pieces ready for assembly but before we do that I want to talk about this process for just a second a lot of people have the misconception that 3d printing is like you click a button and then you have a finished thing and in this case and in the case of a lot of props that is not true in fact this project so far has been one of the more time-intensive things I've done in a really long time there's a bunch of reasons why but I think it's important for you to understand the modeling took a long time even though I was learning fusion at the same time I was working on this project but I had to model the pieces and then make changes and modify the models I had to print out pieces that sometimes failed or were just wrong and so the printing process took quite a while and even after I had all the pieces printed I realized that there were a lot of things that I didn't add to the model that I should have once they were all finished printing each piece had to be sanded and primed and sanded and painted and that took a lot longer than I thought I had to do the electronics figure out the code for the animation which I'll show you in just a second but I want you to understand that this 3d printing process actually takes a lot of time and I'm not saying that to dissuade you from doing it in fact I'm trying to encourage you if you find yourself running into roadblocks and having to redo things and realizing that it's taking way longer than you thought it would just be encouraged that that is entirely normal in this type of a project okay let's look at the pieces and the electronics off camera I modeled a few more pieces that I want to show you I did a bunch of these little detailed pieces and these are just going to get stuck to the outside of these panels just to add some more interest another thing is that I modeled these little wedges and these are going to attach to the inside of this sphere as a place for me to mount some magnets so that this whole prop can snap together having a place to mount the magnets is just one of the things I forgot to do in the initial modeling process so this is kind of a way around that the last thing before we start putting it together let's talk about the electronics really quickly the electronics here are really simple but I just want to walk through them really quickly the code will be linked down in the description I've got a neopixel ring here that's got 16 pixels on it I've got an Adafruit trinket which is just a tiny Arduino they're really inexpensive and embedding it in a project like this is no big deal the whole system is run off 5 volts here with double-a rechargeable batteries they have a temporary button to activate this but it's going to be swapped out with something else later the only thing that really happens here is when you press the button you get an animation of light and then the light kind of swirls around while you're holding it down and then when let go of the button it all fades out I used two Sharpie to finish adding detail to these panels both the fine and the normal tip it was way faster than painting and ended up looking just fine I also use some CA glue to add these details to the panel's in no specific position but just where I thought they look good I also use CA glue to hold these posts in on the inside of the dome these are where I'll put the magnets now of course it would have been better to model these in place and to model holes in them to accept the magnets but I didn't do that so I had to use a drill bit that was the same size and try to drill a very shallow hole to put these magnets in I filled them with super glue and then forced in the magnets they fit alright but not as well as they would have if I had modeled the correct depth for the magnet to sit in then it would have been setting on a flat bottom and would have been perfectly flat on the top edge I put a dot of white paint right in the center of both of these magnets and then I set on the mating piece when I push down just barely it transferred some of that paint to the mating piece so I knew where the center of those holes should be I followed the same process here and drilled really shallow holes but instead of superglue this time I mixed up the two-part epoxy this mixes up thicker with the idea that it would fill some of the gap and make it easier to place the magnets at the certain depth that I wanted them to be and it actually ended up working quite a bit better I had to wait a couple minutes for it to dry but then it was ready to go I tested the piece and even though they didn't lay perfectly flat against each other they did line up really well and that was good then it was time to glue on the handles and I just did that with some more CA glue I was really conscious here to try to make all of the pieces attached to this one plate so that the dome on the back could be pulled away without it connecting to any other pieces or electronics I glued these in place and just held them while the glue dried and then it was good to go it was actually a really big relief to see these pieces come together and fit even with the handles in place in the digital model I measured the space in between these panels and then I used my calipers to enforce that spacing as I attach them I used some super glue on the bottom of each one of these pieces to hold them in place one thing I will say that it was really important to go back and sand the bottom of these pieces so that they were perfectly flat and they would lay flat against the surface I had to glue in this crystal piece before I could finish putting on these panels because it didn't fit to drop it right down in I got a roughly centered in the area before adding the last two panels on the outside I had a big nerd out moment once I got it to this state because it actually looked like the thing that I wanted it to look like it was super cool the last thing for me to figure out was where to put the switch and I decided to put it on the handle right on the outside of the dome on the back I traced the outline of the switch and then used a sharp knife to score that line I used to drill bit to quickly remove a lot of the material I really wanted to knock out a whole section so that the switch would fit right down on the inside I did a few test fits and cut out a little bit more material to make sure that there was room for the wire to run through then I set all of the electronics in place on the backside and use hot glue to hold everything there hot glue acts as an insulator for the electronics and it makes it really easy to pull these out in case I ever need to redo anything or replace anything to mount the battery pack I used this two-sided velcro strip I put down some Barge contact cement both on the prop and on the strip and let them dry for about five minutes after that when you stick the two pieces together they immediately bond and it was finally complete I just snapped on the battery pack and held it in place with the velcro and then lined up the back panel with the magnets and put it in place I learned a ton of stuff from this project and there are a lot of things that I will do different next time but overall I am super happy with how this turned out it's the first time I've made a prop that started in 3d modelling and went all the way through to finish and electronics and I'm really glad that I've covered that gamut now I think the next one's going to be even better I'm not going to release the 3d files for this because honestly they're not very good and I have to fix a bunch of stuff but I will put the code for the electronics on my github in case that's useful for you I hope you like this one as much as I do let me know what you think of it down in the comments I've got lots of other videos for you to check out don't forget to subscribe and my second channel is kind of non project related stuff that's it for this week guys thanks for watching I'll see you next time\n"