Halo Spartan Laser Metal & Fiberglass Airsoft Beast

Che Chuy wrote:Awesome! Awaits patiently.

Hurry up!

Here it is!

I got busy yesterday afternoon. By the time I had everything together it was late. So, I decided to test it with the glow BBs. That worked great, but I wasn't really setup to film that. Don't worry, when everything is completed and painted, I'll commission a good-quality night video showing the full light and laser effects.




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I cut, ground, bent, and cursed the hop-up chambers into fitting all together. Still a bit crude-looking, but you know I'll clean it up.




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Here are the feed tubes all in place. SHOULD be no issues with a nice straight run.




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So, time to dig the electronics out of storage from a year ago. OMG, it's a rat's nest! Cat searches for stray BBs in hopes of running up a vet bill.




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You wouldn't believe it, but everything needed for the testing is hooked up. None of the wires are run where they will eventually go. The rumble motors and batteries are hooked up, but just kind of tucked into the BB hopper. This was the configuration I used for my night test. Don't laugh, the first atom bomb didn't look much different for its initial test.

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"Gadget" atom bomb just prior to "Trinity" test 16 July 1945.




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All lights working, ready for the live test!




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For the day test, I installed the sighting laser and reinstalled the backlight LED taillight to solve some sparking issues that cropped up.

I needed the laser to work so I could adjust the hop-ups and try to get all three barrels aiming in parallel.



Here's the promised video of it shooting. Enjoy!





Clearly I still have some work to do before it's ready for painting, but a great day nonetheless. The feed mechanism still needs some toughening. Once that is ironed out, I only need to make the electronic circuit for the shroud lift and we're ready for prime time.

I do want to thank a couple of people who helped with this aspect of the build:

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Larry Lovett of Disruptive Airsoft in Tucson, AZ
SparkyD on Airsoft Retreat
Killbucket all over the airsoft community

I look forward to your thoughts.

Redshirt

I think you need to redesign it with a hexagon of six barrels

dude awesome you've got it up and running, now all you've gotta do is get the bugs all figured out

Wookie850 wrote:dude awesome you've got it up and running, now all you've gotta do is get the bugs all figured out

Thanks!  Here's some progress on those bugs!

Che Chuy wrote:I think you need to redesign it with a hexagon of six barrels

Ugh!  Some people are never pleased.  Besides, six barrels has been done!



Last week's test was great for a proof of concept, but still a ways away from reliable. The BB feed was all hand wound for that test and fed very inconsistently. This week I've poured a lot of attention into getting the electric winder working as well as improving the reliability. I also built the white light diffusers that will go into the lighted details along the sides of the upper receiver.



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I started building the diffusers with a scrap of 1/4 inch LEXAN from Lowes. They sell scrap pieces. I had to invest a whopping 35 cents in this piece!
I sanded down both sides with 100 grit sandpaper and cut a slot for the LED to insert.




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I plastic welded on thin strips of white styrene to hold the LED and reflect at the source. Then I spray painted one side and all the edges with white plastic and vinyl paint to act as a reflector and provide the white background.




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I then painted the same areas black to keep any light from escaping to the inside of the model--no light leaks.


These will be installed in the model with special high-temperature black hot glue to further prevent light leaks.





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Here's the test. Nice even light distribution to give away my position. I may add a switched resistor to help with that.


Much harder was to collect last week's lessons learned and modify and finish the BB feed.




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I had stray BBs get into the works and stop the winders by jamming this counter weight.





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Closed off all of those leaks, but still plastic welded on a shield to each of my winders.




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The plastic hex fittings for the allen wrench shaft weren't up to the task and would eventually strip. I cut apart some set screws and made metal hex inserts.





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Job done!





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Finally, I modified the servo motor to spin as a motor. This involved removing stops, cutting some new gear teeth, and removing all of the circuitry in the servo and directly wiring leads to the motor.





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The new servo required a new mounting--back to the welder!





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I also made a larger sprocket for a faster drive. Here's everything installed, shimmed, and ready to go.



After I reworked everything, I was ready for a test.





It works! There are still some feed and jam issues that have it not ready for prime time. I've got some other mods cooking, but I've reached a point that I know I could field this gun. More improvements for the next update and work on automating the lift mechanism.

Redshirt

I met a major milestone tonight.  I finished building the last part--a late addition of a switch mount to dim the side lights.  While every piece has been fitted and tested, the whole beast has never been fitted and fired together at the same time.  That job of running all the wires and putting it all together for a complete shakedown prior to painting begins tomorrow.  Those pictures will follow.

The big movement this week was on the front shroud and it's lift mechanism.  This thing has been built from scratch twice already and seen at least one major refit of the final piece since then.  This week I completed the circuit for the lift mechanism and tested it.  The unit lifted smooth and straight when I moved it.  Under servo power it bound, lifted to one side, twisted and sheared a welded fitting right off.  Most of the blame went to the nasty little braces that run up the side of the shroud.  More work.



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So here's a refresher of what the lift mechanism looked like prior to the destruction.




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Here's a collection of broken parts.  The lifting bracket on the far left was sheared.  Turns out that maybe my weld wasn't hot enough.

I set out to solve the twisting as well as the overall excess play in the system.



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I added this limiter at the front that provides just a little tension when the shroud is fully lifted.





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I added a central spine to stabilize the assembly.  To that spine I added a spring that provides a little boost to the servo during the first half inch of lift where most of the binding happens.  The side stabilizers received numerous sessions against the belt sander to ensure smooth movement.





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To the rear I added a massive plate to distribute the lifting forces.  More weight!





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After all of those changes, the shroud lifts reliably and consistently.  I'd like it to be crisper and more authoritative, but I'm grateful to be able to call it reliable.





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Here it has the fiberglass piece added and the whole assembly fitted to the receiver for proof testing.  I didn't grab video, but I'll get some during the shakedown.

I'll get some pictures of the final parts in a day or two.  Thanks for following.

Redshirt

The work is meticulous again as I shorten some wires and add to others to accommodate the final internal arrangements. I'm also changing out some connectors and switches. Once I have the wiring harness in place, it's largely just a matter of bolting on the parts. I'm sure there will be some snags and conflicts, but I'm certain there won't be any show stoppers.



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I have just this one picture of the bird's nest of wiring all spread out for the work. Each tag records the changes that need made to that section of wiring. The project box is marked for the grommet locations and the mounting points. I finished the work on the wires tonight and will get the project box cleaned up tomorrow.




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Here's the initial work on the stencils and decals. These are a compromise between the 'on the ground' model and the 'taking a shot' rendering in the game. Also, the game model just has the left side mirror the right resulting in the lettering being backwards on the left side. I didn't go for that.

Shakedown this weekend! I hope.

Redshirt

Done! Well almost. I just finished final assembly and bench testing late tonight. It's too late to take it out and shoot, but it works! Hopefully, I'll shoot it briefly tomorrow, then take it all apart for final sanding and finishing. I've got a ton of pictures, so I'll get going:




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I have LEDs in the BB hopper to pre-charge the tracer BBs. I don't think this will do much really, but there's almost no power cost, so I tacked in 4 LEDs for the job.

Remember, sloppy hot glue is just for this temp fitting prior to painting and final assembly.





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Side lights fitted.




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Starting to go together. Later, a large red button will appear on top of the electronics box. This is a switched resistor to dim the side markers for night airsofting.






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Running the wiring loom past the gear box cage. This went through three routings until I settled on a workable plan.






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Barrels, sight laser, LED illuminator, and hop-up tracer units installed!




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Not one inch of space that's unfilled. Three BB tubes in place!




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Outer barrel and shroud lift mechanism fitted. This took several visits to the band saw or sander until I was happy.




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The picture that's been almost three years in the making: An operational airsoft Spartan Laser with a welded metal lower receiver and molded upper receiver.

And now some details:




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Here's the safe/storage configuration with the front grip folded and the shroud down and locked. I'll construct a pin to lock the handle closed, ensuring the master power switch can't energize the weapon.




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Here's a closeup of the safe configuration you never get to see in the game.






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Side stabilizers. Remember, everything shown still has a final round of sanding and filling before painting.




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Machined metal details--hand-cut on a wood router! Don't try it without reading up on the hazards and precautions earlier in the thread.






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Sighting laser warming things up.




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Pwned!




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Shooter view with the sighting laser. Hard to take the photo one-handed.


That's it folks. Next post should be the daytime shooting and shroud function videos.


One final thing. I stepped on a scale with it.

22 pounds with no BBs!

Redshirt

I finally got the shakedown videos! Here comes the backpedaling though. They are partial demos due to the BB feed partially failing and my battery going kaput. So, the shroud lift is a little slow and there's no amazing stream of BBs from all three gear boxes firing at once. Caveats aside, ENJOY!






Shroud lift demo: I still have some interference issues at the back that hinder retraction.


Here's the firing demo:




You can see just how big this beast is. My guest shooter is over six feet tall.

Thanks for the support.

Redshirt

Awesome!

Sorry to be slow updating this week, but I've finished painting it! I'll show the workup today and I'll post the finished picks in a day or two. I took it to the local CON (Pensacon) this weekend and was amazed at the reception.  Wookie got to see it in the flesh.  I'd hoped to have it out to the field on the first, but I don't think it will be combat-ready by then.

First, I went to upload my photos last night and Imageshack has suddenly become a pay site without so much as an e-mail telling me they're switching. Up theirs! So, back to Photobucket where they limit my traffic. We'll see . . . .

Anyway, here are the teasers!




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This is the scene a couple of hours after the last posting. Fully disassembled!




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Here are all of the metal parts on display. In the end, there are 50 different aluminum parts that I made.





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Four molded fiberglass parts





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All of the electronic components. Good fun.


Cerakote process for the metal parts follows:

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Cerakote is a ultra-modern ceramic firearms coating that is reasonably affordable, easy to apply, and incredibly tough. This allowed me to add a level of realism to my prop that simply cannot come from a paint can. This is also an airsoft gun that needs to be tough enough to survive rough use.




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Here's an M3 Greasegun airsoft replica that began as a rather gloss-black eyesore and ended up as this realistic replica using Cerakote.





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The parts must first be completely degreased with acetone.
Areas not being coated had to be masked.





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Every surface being coated was sandblasted to promote adhesion and a matte finish.





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Every piece was then heated to bake out any remaining oils.





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I used Graphite Black as my base color. I catalyzed it 24 parts color to 1 part hardener to get the most flat finish. Use a narrower ratio to get satin or semi-gloss finishes.




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I baked the parts on the grill (DO NOT USE YOUR KITCHEN OVEN) at around 250 degrees for two hours. Plastic and resin parts can also be Cerkoted. Those cure for three hours at 180 degrees. The beauty of that setup is Cerkote can make mixed-media construction look like all-metal construction. On that M3 I showed earlier, there are several plastic details. You can't tell. Resin parts should be test baked to find and fill any air bubbles near the surface prior to coating.




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Here's the outer barrel in Graphite Black, Sniper Grey, polished aluminum, and ordinary copper paint. Very lightsaber-like hmm?





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Here's the lower receiver after coming out of the curing process.




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Here it is after lightly dry-brushing it with aluminum paint to bring out the details. This was just the start of an almost all-nighter to get it showable for the CON.






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My neighbor offered up the services of her Cricut machine to make stencils in vinyl. She did a beautiful job too!




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I airbrushed on the red stripe and hot glued the black mesh inside the venting before gluing in the vent assemblies and bolting on external details. Notice the decals below the forward vents. I printed them on white decal film and sealed them with Eastwood Diamond Clear--about the finest-quality uncatalyzed clearcoat available.

To finish the weathering and detail, I gave all the green parts a dark brown wash, airbrushed sand-colored mottling, and drybrushed sand color onto all of the raised edges. I followed this by spraying the whole thing with a two-part automotive clear flat finish to get a much tougher coating than a standard rattle can. After that cured, I misted the fiberglass parts with Testors Brass Metalizer to make the whole thing slightly iridescent.

There's the teaser. I'll put up the finished pics in a few days.

Redshirt

Long time followers know I'm never short for words. I'll just leave you with the results and ask, how did I do? Honest critiques are always welcome. I've tried to make as few compromises as possible to make the best Spartan Laser prop available and a functioning airsoft gun.

Here are the in-game reference shots I used against the same shots of my replica.


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Here I am with my armor at Pensacon last weekend




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I was lucky enough to meet up with fellow Halo guy Toymakerkarl and have him model the new Spartan Laser!




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This shot with the LED backlight and sighting laser on turned out awesome!

OK, I owe the full videos still, but I have to take the whole thing down to replace the burned-out winder servo and the lift servo before I have full capability. I will get the full-spectrum vids done soon!

Thanks again for following.

Redshirt

There are some technical differences that amount to nit-picking.  You have done a superb job and I am glad you hung on as long as you did to create this beautiful playable prop.

Che Chuy wrote:There are some technical differences that amount to nit-picking.  You have done a superb job and I am glad you hung on as long as you did to create this beautiful playable prop.

Thank you very much.  Many of these are known and being fixed this week.  The front shroud will lift higher, but had an interference issue.  Other details may differ because the first person shot view has some different features (decals, bolt holes, panel lines) than the on the ground view.  I've tried to amalgamate them where it made sense.  Also, Bungie took a shortcut on the in-game model by mirroring the skin from left to right, resulting in the lettering being backwards on the left side.  Yeah, I couldn't go for that.  Here's a shot from Pensacon that defies captioning.

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I hope to debut it in full airsoft configuration at the next game day.

Redshirt

OK, lots of work going into weaponizing this thing.  After it's first outing as a prop at Pensacon, I had a list of 19 repairs, upgrades, and adjustments that needed done to make this a viable airsoft gun and enhance its accuracy as a replica.

1. Stabilizer fit on right side.
2. Shroud Height -- grind fiberglass inside upper receiver
3. Shroud height -- reposition lift point
4. Build new lift rod
5. Fix limit switch
6. Replace/upgrade lift servo
7. Replace/upgrade winder servo
8. Paint BB hopper
9. Fix magnets (Lesson learned:  Rare earth magnets don't like heat curing)
10. Adjust master switch
11. Build master safety pin (Weapon is not intrinsically safe when loaded)
12. Touch up Cerakote
13. Touch up olive coating
14. Build attachment for top cover (hot glued in for Pensacon)
15. JB Weld Metal details that came loose in oven
16. Solve feed tube attachment issues
17. Repair detail on left stabilizer
18. Adjust LED rheostat (I added) a push button dimmer for airsofting to reduce the chance for the side lights to give me away)
19. Shrink tube the laser sight (it shorts to ground and fires the master gear box--very bad)

So I've been very busy knocking these out, but still have these left to do:

2. Shroud Height -- grind fiberglass inside upper receiver
16. Solve feed tube attachment issues
18. Adjust LED rheostat (I added) a push button dimmer for airsofting to reduce the chance for the side lights to give me away)
19. Shrink tube the laser sight (it shorts to ground and fires the master gear box--very bad)

So I'm getting very close, but have a couple of solid issues in there to deal with.

Here's some of the work:




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Electronics box ready for paint



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Now beautiful in industrial wrinkle paint



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Getting the hopper and lid ready for paint



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Wrinkle paint is so BA.  Just love the rugged look.



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Here's the painted hopper in place.  My goal is for the inside to look just as professional as the outside.  So many airsoft conversions look cobbled together.  True, this too was cobbled together, but with a decent budget and some weird obsession



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I purchased new low-profile high-torque servos with metal gears for both the winder (shown) and the shroud retractor.  I had to massively mod them to shoehorn into the lower receiver sideways.  Note how the case is cut and the sprocket recessed.  I also changed the connector location



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Then trouble struck.  I broke one of my modded high-cap mechanisms.  This was not the first.  I may recut the spindle from brass tubing.  I don't really need the thumb wheel part anymore.  Unfortunately, this will take a few days to solve I think.


Here's where I broke from canon and added equipment not shown in the game.  I decided I needed some kind of shipping lock to transport the loaded Splaser to and from the field to protect the battery from drainage and prevent an accidental discharge while being transported or serviced.

Based on some of the physical lockouts I've seen on Air Force weapons controls, I came up with this sexy beast:


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Fresh paint



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Safety pin bonded in



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Custom water-slide decals for that no-nonsense look





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Fore-grip is locked in place preventing master arm switch from actuating.  I think this will look awesome on the assembled Splaser as well.  In case of emergency, break seal!



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View from below with hinge details.

That's it tonight.  Hoping to close it up in a couple of days.  I still owe everyone the full day and nigh videos.  Mostly, I owe them to myself.

Cheers,
Redshirt

This thing has been seriously kicking my butt. I had planned to debut it at TFAA this past Sunday, but no dice. I won't show it until it's ready.

It's like a hydra trying to get the bugs worked out. Each rework seems to expose more headaches--binding linkages and pinched wires each time I put it together for the 'final' assembly.

I've worked on the dang thing nearly every day since the last post and think I'm almost there. I've dreamed big, so I'm not surprised to have big teething troubles.

The end goal is to have the most realistically constructed Spartan Laser with the best animation and a functioning airsoft that isn't too glitchy and unreliable to take out skirmishing. I hope I've met the first. The animation is very close--just a broken servo arm away. The reliable airsoft weapon has been the bugbear. I think I'm one shorted wire away from total victory.

The Splaser firing without provocation in the kitchen while being handled has kept me from loading BBs into it and has Mrs Redshirt and the mini-me Redshirt irritated by all the racket.

Couldn't bring myself to work on it tonight after getting back from a long day, so I decided to post the update.

I'm not all Debbie Downer. There are quite a few checked boxes of problems solved and the photos to prove it.



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This is the complete weapon minus any of the cosmetic pieces. At the rear is the BB hopper with the feeders inside on the bottom right. The hopper is white inside because I have pre-charger LEDs inside to 'warm up' the glow BBs for night fights. The black box forward of the hopper is the electronics package looking resplendent in wrinkle paint. The cage with the three gear boxes is in the center with the BB chambers on the front of those. You can see the BB feed tubes supplying the chambers from the hopper. The brass barrels are blackened just at the tips. The LED tail light at the front blids opponents and backlights the flying BBs for more laser effect. Every component is painted because it wouldn't do for the exterior to be super pro-job and have the inside look amateur hour



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Here's a closeup of the gear box cage, feed tubes and the electronics module. The red button on top dims the side marker LEDs for night fighting.



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The hopper and electronics module. Still tidying up the wires.



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The barrel installation. Hidden on the far side of the LED taillight is the sighting laser--very bright. The sighting laser is the sole means of aiming this weapon as there are no iron sights. The lack of computerized HUD-linked sight goes without saying, although a couple of people on this site have made inroads!



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Close up of some of my metal work. The ceramic firearm coating is so awesome that a lot of my weathering silver rubbed off at Pensacon. The coating is like Teflon in its resistance to having anything stick to it.



Hope to have it bolted together and have real progress by the end of the weekend. Thanks to everyone that's still following.

Redshirt

Giggity.

Tried to test it this morning with no luck. The improved feeder was not feeding at all. It will do that if you wire up the servo BACKWARDS to make it un-feed BBs from the tubes. Dumb rookie mistake. I fixed it tonight, loaded some tracer BBs and stepped into the back yard. Fired on all three systems first try! It was 10 pm so I couldn't repeat it without raising the ire of the neighbors. Without the hop ups set, the BBs went fairly wild, but I'll wrestle them into a coherent stream tomorrow. Looked like an AC-130 firing it's minigun at night! I also ordered up another retract servo for the shroud, so it'll be a week before I can get full function in the prop to call it done.

Cheers,
Redshirt

So last update everything looked normal, but the BBs weren't feeding.  Turns out that my little screw up of turning my winder backwards did some major damage to all three feed mechanisms.  Take a look:



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All three springs had a short section turned into a bird's nest.  This was keeping the cogs from correctly engaging and driving the feeders.  It took most of this evening to sort out, but in the end I made a couple of other tweaks and all three are smoother at picking up BBs than ever!  The wins haven't come often over the past couple of weeks, but you have to take what you can get.

Tomorrow I'll sort out a finicky chamber and an over zealous hop-up mechanism to get all the shooting components up to full function.  My replacement lift servo comes tomorrow, but I don't know if I'll see my servo controllers will before the weekend.

I'm really looking forward to getting it back together because I've significantly improved the paint work on the green components, but haven't seen them together yet.

Redshirt

WOW so impress with your Project, Bravo Zula to you

Howie wrote:WOW so impress with your Project, Bravo Zula to you

Thanks Howie!  Almost there.

Fixed the feeder and got to go see what the beast firing at 100% capacity on all cylinders looks like.  Wow!  burned through about 800 BBs in a couple of test shots.  My feed tube mounts are compressing the Hop-up adjust on two barrels and cause the BBs to arc up no matter how much I dial the Hop-up down.  The disassembly tonight will probably take longer than the actual adjustments.  I also need a little more adjust on my laser mount.  Almost there!

Redshirt

I solved the problem with the hop-ups last night. Here's where the problem was:


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In this old photo, you can see how my aluminum feed tube connector/tracer unit mount/hop-up set screw holder (it needs a real name) mounts hard to the top of the plastic chamber. When tightened, this pressed down significantly on the hop-up adjust, rendering two of my barrels significantly over-hopped even with the adjustment set screw removed.



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Here's the modification I made to the standard Echo1 E90 hop-up lever. Original style is on top. I had to knock down the overall height as well as cut down the front to enable a full range of hop adjust.

At just about too late to be shooting an airsoft gun outside, I stepped out to try it without any hop-up dialed in. All three barrels with consistent drop! I was too tired to sight it in when I got back today, but I'll sight all three systems in along with the sighting laser tomorrow!

Redshirt

I got to sight it in a couple of days ago. The hop-ups adjust easily and ally three systems fire true. It took surprisingly little time to get all three hop-ups consistent and the sighting laser to match. I get about an eight inch group at 120 feet. I can certainly live with that! The feed system is also working brilliantly, so persistence has paid off!

I finally got my shipment of servo testers in from Amazon. After burning up a couple of expensive heavy-duty landing gear retract servos using circuit reversals and cut-out switches in lieu of electronic control, I decided to try and find a way to emulate the open and close signals that a servo expects to manage its own extend and retract sequence. This was no easy feat. n I settled on a pair of servo testers. One switch position would power the servo tester dialed in to send the retract signal, the other switch position would power the tester sending the extend signal. An elegant solution? No, but in the end, simplicity itself.




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After a long wait, these finally showed up.


I stripped of the knobs, took the circuit boards out of their outer case and siamesed a pair back to back inside a case with hard foam in between for insulation. It took a while to find enough a place inside the gun with enough room and build my wiring harness to suit. Looks like there is enough space under the mech boxes next to the rumble motors.




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When the front grip is fully opened, the extend circuit is live and cranks the servo counter-clockwise. This will raise the front shroud.




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With the grip in any other position short of locked open, the retract signal is being sent to the shroud servo.

The whole setup works brilliantly with no fuss or adjustment needed. I wish this had been my plan from the start.



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Strangely enough, things are much less complicated in the cramped quarters between the front grip and the trigger.

Tomorrow I will mount the servo, lift mechanism and shroud. Perhaps I'll be able to call it finished?

Redshirt

I'm still chasing that last 1% this week. I had it buttoned up for the first time since March last night. I have to open it up today for a switch problem in the grip and a bad solder joint in a battery lead, but I'm really almost set to call it game-ready and shoot the first vids.

Here's what it looked like last night:




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This is the first pic of the whole thing in lockdown mode for shipping. The safety lock is installed through the lower receiver that keeps the front grip locked closed. Opening the front grip actuates the master power switch, so locking the grip closed makes the weapon intrinsically safe. I think it looks cool too!

I know you've seen the lock before, but not on the assembled Splaser. I was anxious to see that it was tight enough to lock out the switches and how it would look on the assembled prop.




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I did the safety lock for transporting the Spartan Laser and because once the Splaser has had BBs loaded, there is no way of 100% unloading it without opening it up. Thus my Splaser can't be dry fired with complete assurance that no BBs will fire! I felt the gun needed the additional tamper proofing.




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Putting the lock through the game-model pivot point gave that feature legitimacy. If you look at the game model of the H3 Splaser, you realize the grip could not pivot where Bungie rendered it. I made my model's pivot point invisible behind and below that of the game model. I drilled through the game-model hinge point with the grip closed for my lock. With a pin through there, the grip is immobilized..





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Here are the pics of the lock being removed.




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Here's the lock removed. I didn't weather the lock. It seems to chip and rub pretty naturally through usage.




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It is a bit hard to tell, but I changed the coloring significantly since the initial painted photos. The new coloring is lighter and browner, mostly due to more brass metalizer in the top layer and a heavier brushing of brass along the edges to match the game modelling. I also airbrushed the low areas and the grooves with a darker green with a slight blue hue per the game render.

I will shoot the vids and more outdoor photos this weekend once I have the switches and battery fixed!

Redshirt

Squeeeee!