*THROWABLE* Hardlight Coil

[MicaHusky]

I've been working on a little something for a few months and I figured I'd post it here.

I've seen Fusion Coils / Blast Coils / Hardlight Coils done before, but I got this idea in my head of "in Halo Infinite, you are supposed to throw the things....why can't I make a throwable one!?!?!?"

So what I've been doing is building a Hardlight Coil from the ground up to be "throwable". All the materials used are going to be, at least somewhat, supportive of being thrown/tossed and landing on the floor without damage. EVA foam and packing foam for the main body, frosted transparent vinyl table-protector material for the windows, a high-infill PETG printed inner skeleton, and the interior filled with Polyfil to make the light scatter a bit better.

The LEDs are going to be powered by an ESP32 running WLED, which means that the LEDs are NOT just a strip of single-color RGB, the LEDs are individually addressable; meaning I can do all sorts of fun dynamic patterns with them.

This will likely make it's full debut at C2E2 this year.

Here are some pictures.

I figured y'all would like to see this as I'm building it.

 

[Nob1e Actua1]

This is amazing i cant wait to see the finished product.

 

[MicaHusky]

Update; the endcaps are being painted as we speak. I also got the lights to do some neato stuff to show off the addressable-RGB functionality.

 

[MicaHusky]

Another update! Did a test fit of everything and tuned the lights to look like the Hardlight coil does. This looks so cool already and it’s so close to being done!

 

[JTF4]

The animations on the LEDs look phenomenal! I also love that you can throw it.

What did you do for the animation code?

I totally want to steal this idea now.

 

[NobleofDeath16]

I agree, absolutely love the LED work you did, that will be a whole lot of fun for photos.

 

[MicaHusky]

The lighting is done with an ESP32 (kinda like an arduino) running a piece of software called “WLED”. It actually shows up as a wifi hotspot you can connect a phone to and change everything through a web interface. Kinda neat.

 

[MicaHusky]

Another update! Everything is glued together and the lights and control electronics are mounted! We’re pretty much done except for some more paint on the insides of the endcaps and maybe a few minor details being added. It’s in “finished enough for a small local anime con” status

 

[MicaHusky]

Final update: It’s done! Going to be shipping it out so it can come to C2E2 later this week

Super happy with how it turned out. It’s my first project using foam so it’s a little rough looking but the lighting distracts from the bad foam work a LOT lol.

 

[Jev]

That's awesome man! I've been looking to do a non-weapon based prop and I think I might have to add this to the build list.
The LED effect is very impressive by the way.

 

[MicaHusky]

Thanks! It kinda blew my mind that nobody had made a throwable coil yet.

Also, some more details. The lighting was placed in by wrapping the led strip around 2 spray paint cans, then stuffing polyfil stuffing around them. Then, I slid the paint cans out and filled the void in the middle. So what you end up with is a helix of LEDs suspended inside polyfil.

The inner “skeleton” is transparent PETG, which allows it to kind of disappear once the lights turn on, giving the illusion that there isn’t any structure in between the middle ring and the end caps.

The battery has Velcro on it, and can be removed for transport/shipping to avoid any hassle with UPS/Fedex/ postal restrictions on shipping lithium batteries. (Ship the coil, pack the battery with my carry-on to C2E2 because it’s just a tiny cell phone battery bank with a MicroUSB connection)

It took me SO LONG to find a suitable material for the transparent windows. My original prototype had that clear acrylic dispersal sheet they put over office fluorescent tube overhead lighting but it was SUPER brittle and would crack if you looked at it funny. What I ended up using (and needing the PETG skeleton for since it’s flexible) is clear table-protector vinyl from Amazon. It’s literally a few segments of that cut to size and shape with sharp scissors.

Before I found that and had the idea to make a PETG skeleton to hold everything sturdy I was seriously considering pivoting to a fusion/blast coil since they have support structure visible from top to bottom. But, of course I did, so my hardlight coil is the result.

Somewhat related: is it just me or is the “hardlight” color scheme and shader the coolest looking effect in infinite??? Hard light coils, cindershot, heatwave…it’s like; “spicy purple” hahaha.

 

[Jev]

Thanks! It kinda blew my mind that nobody had made a throwable coil yet.

Also, some more details. The lighting was placed in by wrapping the led strip around 2 spray paint cans, then stuffing polyfil stuffing around them. Then, I slid the paint cans out and filled the void in the middle. So what you end up with is a helix of LEDs suspended inside polyfil.

The inner “skeleton” is transparent PETG, which allows it to kind of disappear once the lights turn on, giving the illusion that there isn’t any structure in between the middle ring and the end caps.

The battery has Velcro on it, and can be removed for transport/shipping to avoid any hassle with UPS/Fedex/ postal restrictions on shipping lithium batteries. (Ship the coil, pack the battery with my carry-on to C2E2 because it’s just a tiny cell phone battery bank with a MicroUSB connection)

It took me SO LONG to find a suitable material for the transparent windows. My original prototype had that clear acrylic dispersal sheet they put over office fluorescent tube overhead lighting but it was SUPER brittle and would crack if you looked at it funny. What I ended up using (and needing the PETG skeleton for since it’s flexible) is clear table-protector vinyl from Amazon. It’s literally a few segments of that cut to size and shape with sharp scissors.

Before I found that and had the idea to make a PETG skeleton to hold everything sturdy I was seriously considering pivoting to a fusion/blast coil since they have support structure visible from top to bottom. But, of course I did, so my hardlight coil is the result.

Somewhat related: is it just me or is the “hardlight” color scheme and shader the coolest looking effect in infinite??? Hard light coils, cindershot, heatwave…it’s like; “spicy purple” hahaha.

I was wondering how you manipulated the LEDs to make that pattern possible! Very interesting method, were the other electrics very difficult or was it plug-and-play more or less? Also how heavy is it?

Hardlight stuff is probably one of my favourite new additions to the universe, I wasn't a fan of the old Promethean weapons in 4 or 5.

 

[N8TEBB]

It's done!

us at c2

 

[MicaHusky]

I was wondering how you manipulated the LEDs to make that pattern possible! Very interesting method, were the other electrics very difficult or was it plug-and-play more or less? Also how heavy is it?

Hardlight stuff is probably one of my favourite new additions to the universe, I wasn't a fan of the old Promethean weapons in 4 or 5.

It's a strip of ~250ish addressable LEDs and I'm using WLED on and ESP32 to control them. It's basically plug-n-play. just a few solder points on the ESP32 and the ESP32 is powered over MicroUSB. WLED handles all the LED addressing and the controlling and also handles throwing the wifi hotspot up to connect to.

 

[Jev]

It's a strip of ~250ish addressable LEDs and I'm using WLED on and ESP32 to control them. It's basically plug-n-play. just a few solder points on the ESP32 and the ESP32 is powered over MicroUSB. WLED handles all the LED addressing and the controlling and also handles throwing the wifi hotspot up to connect to.

That sounds pretty simple, especially for the prop quality you get for your time!

 

[MicaHusky]

The hardlight coil made the debut at C2E2 and HOLY MOLY the response it received was INCREDIBLE. we had people throwing it like a football, we even had JTF4 get smacked in the FACE with it while in armor. I could not have asked for a better reaction to this thing; I love you guys!!!!

I'm gonna throw some highlights of it's use at the con here, as well as attach the 3 major printed pieces for the inner skeleton of it. if you wanna make one yourself, you'll want to print two endcaps, three braces, and eight of the support struts.

 

[MrJamin]

You forgot to mention that the coil survived getting bounced down the highway (in a box) when it fell out of someone's truck .

 

[MicaHusky]

IT DID!!!!! on the way from Spidermonkey60 's house it FELL OFF THE TRUCK ONTO THE HIGHWAY AT 60MPH (in it's box which isn't saying much though) and survived with not even a dent in it!

 

[tahu505]

The hardlight coil made the debut at C2E2 and HOLY MOLY the response it received was INCREDIBLE. we had people throwing it like a football, we even had JTF4 get smacked in the FACE with it while in armor. I could not have asked for a better reaction to this thing; I love you guys!!!!

I'm gonna throw some highlights of it's use at the con here, as well as attach the 3 major printed pieces for the inner skeleton of it. if you wanna make one yourself, you'll want to print two endcaps, three braces, and eight of the support struts.
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The hardlight coil was easily one of my favorite props over the weekend! It had a good feel to pick up, throw, and catch!