Eyepod using Neopixel & Ardiuno Nano, conrtolled via a EZ-B IoTiny

@cem Great looking Eye.  I can just make out it is changing color,  My Neo Pixel on my Inmoov Bruce-e shows up great on camera.  The Filament I use is PET-g and by nature is semi transparent.  I wish I had Perry's skill with 3D design, and his imagination. Bruce

Thanks Bruce, The filament is ABS and may be it is filtering out the colour when videoing, but when you look at it, the white changes to the bright colours, Yellow, Red, Green and violet.

Once I get my print running again I try a more translucent filament material and see if that helps. Also I disassembly the eye and take out the cover and see what that looks like when videoing!

Yes, Perry definitely has a good imagination!

@ Cem

Great job, hopfully you'll be able to restart your 3D printer I beleive the dreamer printer is a great reliable tool.

Nice job Chris! Looks great!

Sounds weird but this is the first time I have seen someone build what I have designed. It's quite satisfying. It's not that easy of a build and it looks like you managed to get the iris installed and functioning. Probably the hardest part of the build. Neopixel looks great as well.

I'm excited to see your progress and honored by your source of subject matter.

Perry

@Aerius  ( Gillies )

The printer problems were mainly down to myself!! 

About a year ago I changed one of the extruder nozzles to the Mirco Swiss stainless steel hot-end kit, and while I was replacing it I also changed out the heater element in the extruder block, as one of the heater wires seemed very weak and about to snapped off.  All worked OK up until about 3 mths ago, when the heater on this nozzle was very intermittently and the temperature wasn't working correctly, It turned out to be a bad connection on the terminal block for that heater on the extruder top PCB, which had burnt the terminal post and damaged the top assembly PCB. Also at that time the other nozzle and tubing seem to be blocked and taking it out I noticed the heat wrap around the nozzle block needed replacing. So I've decided to replace the whole dual extruder assembly with a new one which comes with the top PCB.

The Flashforge Dreamer has been a excellent printer and have had it now for nearly 4 years, but its in my nature to tinker around with things, rather than leaving them alone!:)

@Perry Its a pain about the Neopixel ring colour ehen videoing it, as it looks so much better when viewing it normally. I had a spare Neopixel and ran it on a separate Arduino and videoed it, and get the same results, you don't see the colour just a white ring, with the colour glow around the edge, I even turn the brightness intensity right down to 10%, but it made little difference??

I haven't yet put a camera in the eyepod ( room is very tight ), and not sure if I will print the other one, thinking of having it has a funky security camera. But originally I was going to print and build another Inmoov head, BUT much larger to accommodate the eyepods which would look really cool. Have you decided what your going to use them for??

We spent the evening trying to assemble ours. Can’t seem to figure out the shutter bits. They also didn’t print well with our makerbot. Maybe too thin. Any tips on printing the shutter bits?

DJ, yes I found putting the shutter segments together very challenging and frustrating. It took me a long time to figure it out. My shutters segments printed out OK but I did use a silver metal filament which had aluminum in it, did have trouble with the pins on the shutters some were to big.

stunning work.love the closing eyelids.

Hi DJ,

The iris can be a little fiddle to sat the least but once it is together it works pretty good. I printed the leafs easy enough. Glue the pins in them with CA then sand them so there is nothing for the next leaf to catch on.

I started off with this iris design and the gent that made it shows a few more assembly pictures that should show the steps to put it together.  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:773759

CEM figured it out with no directions some how.

I have also noticed that I am unable to control the neopixel intensity. It is either full on or full off despite the brightness parameter I use.

Ah! Perry - that helps a ton i think. The gluing part. I never thought of that, so the pins were catching on other leafs of the iris. Makes a lot of sense now - thank you.

I didn't think about gluing the pins either, it would of made it a little less fiddly.

Oh man - the gluing is so right on. It's night and day difference. Thanks Perry

Chris, What did you do here? There is no way for it to operate as designed like you operate it. The Ring with the holes and webs has to rotate when it opens and closes. Are you like the plastic Rain Man?

Perry - we got ours together btw. Last week we realized I was putting it together wrong. The other links that you provided helped a lot because there was a photo which made all the sense. It's embarrassing to tell you how we tried to put it together... i don't even wanna say!

Perry, Its been a long time ago since I put this together ( over a year ago ). I will have to get it out again and hook it all up as I used the EZB-Tiny for something else, and then I’ll have a look, to be honest I don’t really know!

@cem

I am interested in seeing the code for the ioTiny and Arduino. Do you think you still have them somewhere? If not no problem, just thought maybe if you do you might share?

Thanks ... Herr Ball