Periscope

I had a Daniel D block from way back.  It only came with the centre lens.  Then DroidWelder very kindly ran a small run of hollow shafts, he also made me a cap and riser.  These went together great.  

Then i got Rotopod's DD lighting kit, and nothing fits because of the nuts for the shafts.

I considered having the shafts remade to thread into the block so there was no invasion of the space in the block.  But that would have taken ages to sort and would mean that all 3 shafts would need replacing.

So i decided to use a drop plate to mount the shafts to, cut the block to allow room for the nuts, and mount the plate using 3 M4 button heads located so that the lighting kit can still be installed.  The thinking was sound, but in reality, the nuts were too thick and still came into the block by about 1.5mm.  So i used 2 washers on each M4 bolt to space the plate off and sink the nuts the extra distance needed.  I really like the look, it suits the rest of the droid. :)  And because that wasn't Conan, it gave me a little more flexibility elsewhere. :) 

I decided that being custom I could do a custom arrangement of the shafts too.  So I swapped the extras and flipped one to mount above the O rings on one side.  I'm really please with the look.

So once the shafts were all thread locked and glued up and straight, I started looking at the wiring.  I started by fitting the front LED block, these required quite a bit of filing, but once they were the right size it slipped in and out ok.  Then I added the leads for the rear LEDs (mine are on the opposite sides).  The rubber side inserts didnt line up well on the DD kit, so I decided to use them as lenses and cut them out and glue them into the sides, the circles now radiate from the centre of the hole now, and look so much better not being set back so far.  Then I popped it all out and added 5 wires to the bottom.  The Power and GND go down one hole and the ABC lines go down the other. With that done i looked at the rear LEDs, i decided to mount these and use 2 pin connectors directly to the LEDs to allow easier removal of the setup.

So all in and fitted and filed to shape, in and ready to go.  So stripped it all out, glued it all up and final fitted it.  Then read through the specs and found the input voltage area.  It said that 5.4v up should run it, so I opted to try it on a 5v powerbank as the first test, and it instantly started twinkling away, just one rear led not working, so sorted that and had a complete periscope all finished and wired up ready for triggering. :)  In some modes it doesn't draw enough current to keep the battery on, so it has to be pretty efficient. :)

It is already reshaped to fit the 300mm dome profile, so i should be ready to fit it as soon as JAG does his lifter run.  Just need to work on the LFS and custom sabre now and the results with the lifters should be quick and fun. :)

And a poor quality video of it in action. :)