Custom Electronics for Star Trek Enterprise

[cansc]

Hi, I'm looking at possibly doing some custom electronics for a Star Trek Enterprise 1/350 model which is 18" long. It would have a bunch of lights that stay on and some that flash 3 seconds on, 0.5 seconds off, 3 seconds on, etc. and a couple others that flash at 1 second on, 0.5 seconds off, 1 second on, etc. Then there would be a set of 2 "pods" at the front of the engines that would rotate at around 1 second for each rotation. Here is what that would look like: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:403827 . I would try to make it look as close as possible to the lights in this, the lights start at around 1 minute into the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjOsExpQd-4 (only the lights in the video pods seem to be changing color- I would only make it orange). I think the lights are available for $160 for the pods and $300 for the complete electronics which I would not pay as it's for a gift potentially. I was thinking a couple of mini motors for the pods? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance for your help!

[cansc]

This might be a better representation, at around 3 minutes in to the video. But there are 2 motors rotating in each pod here I think so I would only look at simplicity, doing 1 motor rotating only. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIHUeRC9R7g
Thanks!

[adafruit_support_mike]

I think the lights are available for $160 for the pods and $300 for the complete electronics

You can do it for far less.

These days we blink lights with LEDs, which only cost a few cents each:

https://www.adafruit.com/category/534

Even building a surface-mount PCB to hold the LED, a current limiting resistor, and contacts is inexpensive:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1758

If you need tiny regions of light, it's fairly common to use 3mm LEDs with a bundle of fiber optic cable, then route the strands of fiber several different places. People generally hold the LED and fiber bundle together with a short length of heat-shrink tubing:

https://www.adafruit.com/category/623

For the nacelles, here's a video from the Air & Space Museum's reconstruction of the original 11' model:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQEkS9hw-Js

According to the Smithsonian, the original nacelles used "mirrors, motors, nails, and Christmas lights", but now you can use LEDs for the lighting. To fade the various colors in and out you can use an LED driver like this one:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1455

And for motors, you can use continuous rotation servos:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2442

which let you control the speed and direction of rotation.

All of these things need to be controlled by a microcontroller, and we have a world more computing power today than they did in the 1960s. A single ItsyBitsy should have more than enough computing power and GPIO pins for all the lighting and motors you'll want:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3727

If you want to get fancy you can use one that communicates with your phone using BLE:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/4481

for wireless control.

If you find yourself needing more control signals than the ItsyBitsy has to offer, our Seesaw boards are easy to add:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3657
https://www.adafruit.com/product/5233

You could also split the control duties up and dedicate a few Trinket M0s to specific areas:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3500

one for each nacelle, for instance.

Even piling up enough hardware to get ridiculous overkill, you'll come in well below $300.

[adafruit_support_mike]

UPDATE: Adam Savage's Tested just released a video from the Smithsonian, looking at the 11' Enterprise model:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VMyePEToYE

There's a section around 22:00 where they show the internals of the nacelle lighting effects, rotors, motors, mirror-LED assemblies and all.