Hi Hans,

For the Warp Jump:
Yes, steady blue color, increasing brightness to an almost white, then a white flash and decreasing brightness from almost white to steady blue again.

For the Torpedo:
One pushbutton should not fire random shots. Maybe 3 or 4 shots (like the phaser) a bit like a short fire burst.
I like the idea of having the LED "vibrate" when slowly increasing brightness. Then we also have a bright flash but without decreasing brightness after that. The LED just goes off after the flash. The Klingons have a Torpedo with a fading afterglow, the Federation doesn´t.

This should be possible with a normal LED. No need for a WS2812.

A friend has Amazon Prime. Maybe I can watch it with him.

Have fun with the sound modules. Im addicted to not have just lights in my models but sound too.

I've ordered things from Amazon and it should arrive this upcoming week.
I'll give you a shout when it arrived.

For the effects: Do you use a simple button for each effect?
I've also ordered a Bluetooth module, and thought it would be cool to implement that as well, so you can control the effects via a cellphone ...

Yes, I use just a simple button for each effect. Respectively I will use a capacitive push button, so I can mount it under a acrylic plate which is designed like an LCARS display.

A bluetooth option sounds interesting. How is it done? I mean you have to write an app right? For this project, I think a LCARS like console would be great. But for other projects bluetooth could make much more sense.

I´m curious about it.

Have a great weekend!

Oh cool! I'll go see if Amazon.de has these as well.

Frustrating experience:
Yesterday the parts were supposed to arrive, so I waited all day and around 21:00 got the message from DHL that my address didn't exist.
They instantly returned the shipment to Germany (according to the tracking info, this took less than 5 minutes), and of course I could not contact anyone from DHL at that moment.
The address in my Amazon order, and in the DHL tracking info was 100% correct, and they have delivered here before.
So obviously I'm not amused by DHL and filed a complaint with DHL and Amazon this morning.
Now I have to wait for Amazon to receive the package, wait for them to refund, and then order AGAIN. 

I was badly surprised by the response from both DHL.
Basically their response was "Oh I see this is a mistake on our end - our apologies and good luck figuring that one out with Amazon".

So I'm waiting for Amazon right now, and I'll try to add these touch sensors.
My idea was to add a Bluetooth module and control the effects with Bluetooth (cellphone) 

 Oh damn, what a reaction from DHL. "It was our fault but good luck with figuring out how to proceed"

My
experience with Amazon is that they repaid shipping costs after I told
them, that Hermes just put my package at the street door without telling
me. So maybe you got luck and Amazon just send it again. And with a bit
more luck, you will get both packages with paying just one. (Imagine a funny Smile with coolness sunglasses, cause I think I got a Smiley-Replay problem again)

To control the effects with cellphone sounds funny and kinda cool. But I got something like this in mind:

LCARS

Because
you always need a cellphone if you want to trigger the effects. But
maybe it would be cool if the App looks like a LCARS console. (Imagine a big grinning smiley)

Yeah, not cool how DHL handled this ... not cool at all.
Amazon on the other hand was super helpful. I asked them how I can make sure to NOT use DHL, but that does not seem to be an option.
Amazon did a full refund, incl. shipping costs, so that's all good (got it back into my account the same day).
I just had to order everything again.

So today the package should arrive again ... and again with DHL ... so you can imagine I'm nervous about this hahah.

LCARS Video - Wow that is awesome ...!! Just getting goose-bumps watching that. NICE! 

Doing it that way (the panel) is super cool, and probably cooler than using a cellphone.
But for a later step, using a cellphone may be a cool add-on feature 

A few thought, which will make our live more difficult;

1) When firing, it would be cool to have some sorts of extra effect. Like an actual laser light (one of those tiny LED lasers used i laser pointers - they can be had pretty cheap).

2) When firing; some sorts of light lighting up where the explosion is.

3) When going to warm, have some sort of light effect mimic fast moving stars (of course the shop is moving, but since it's static we have to move the stars)

I know ... I'm going overboard here haha. Hence the "making our lives more difficult".
I did try to order some of those laser LEDs from Amazon, but none are allowed to be shipped to The Netherlands - for example these.
Some sorts of "it is dangerous" regulation?

Would be cool if there would be white or blue lasers as well - since red is not really the right color.

With 1) and 2) we'd of course have the problem of the location of the target haha. Unless we'd predefine a few spots.

Anyhoo ... I love this project 

Well Amazon handled it the
right way, and they made it even though it wasn't their mistake.

I don't know if there are any regulations. But what I know is, that those cheap
lasers can be quite dangerous. Much more power than allowed, much more powere
than labeled and so on.

The idea of having a LCARS interface is now about 20 years old. Back then I had
no idea how to make them. Even Arduino didn't exist. And then I found videos
like the one you have seen. You can imagine that my jaw doped. Someone is the
same kind of Nerd like Iam. hahahaha

And your idea of putting real lasers in, isn't new. Take a look at this video
(about 1 minute in)  Real Phaser 

Well Amazon handled it the right way, and they made it even though it wasnt their mistake.

I dont know if there are any regulations. But what I know is, that those cheap lasers can be quite dangerous. Much more power than allowed, much more powere than labeled and so on.

The idea of having a LCARS interface is now about 20 years old. Back then I had no idea how to make them. Even Arduino didnt exist. And then I found videos like the one you have seen. You can imagine that my jaw doped. Someone is the same kind of Nerd like Iam. hahahaha

And your idea of putting real lasers in, isnt new. Take a look at this video (about 1 minute in)

Well
Amazon handled it the right way, and they made it even though it wasnt their
mistake.

I dont know if there are any regulations. But what I know is, that those cheap
lasers can be quite dangerous. Much more power than allowed, much more powere
than labeled and so on.

The idea of having a LCARS interface is now about 20 years old. Back then I had
no idea how to make them. Even Arduino didnt exist. And then I found videos
like the one you have seen. You can imagine that my jaw doped. Someone is the
same kind of Nerd like Iam. hahahaha

And your idea of putting real lasers in, isnt new. Take a look at this video
(about 1 minute in)

Damn. I really dont know whats wrong. But I hope you can read it somehow.

Here are the links

Real Phaser

And this one.

Moving Stars

It only got simple with your help.

I think I will tweak the
sound here and there a lil bit to make it fit a bit better. Without
knowing, it shouldn´t be visible that the sound is a bit off in some
situations.

But there is more to go. I mentioned a warp-jump
effect earlier. Having the engines on a steady blue color and with a
button push it will fade brighter, with a light blue/white flash at full
brightness and fade down to its steady color. Some varibles for the
brightness, fadeup time, flash time and fadedown time would be great,
also adjustable color. I will try to achieve this by my own, but I don´t
think I will get it working without your help.

Warp jump

And maybe I will also do a photon torpedo effect like this one cause it is similar to the warp jump:

Photon Torpedo

But i think this will be a new topic right?

Have a good start to the new week!

My first attempt to put sound in a model was also a hacked sound-postcard

Well, I don´t think there is a "original" model of this MP3 module. Take a look at DFRobot, it is a China company and I think they are the main "producer" of those chips (hence DF in DFPlayer and DFRobot). But I might be wrong. I buy my modules from AZDelivery. They are here in Germany but also do shipping in Europe.

Never had problems with Arduino or breakout board clones. But yes, I would also spend a few € more to get a good working product without troubles.

With my simple LED and Sound code there was no need for sync. The Arduino just sends a "play" signal to the DFPlayer and it starts the soundfile while the Arduino continues its code (which is a simple light effect). But I had to figure out the time it takes for the LED effect and adjust the lenghts of the sound by using Audacity.

This kind of merging Arduino and DFPLayer was easy. But it might get complicated with a more complex code and more effects

When you got your modules and played with them a bit, you can just write me and I will send you my first attempt of phaser + sound.

Have a nice weekend!

Hi Hans,

thanks for your praise. The big part of this work is made by you

I don´t order over AliExpress. For me it feels kinda cheesy and I always think about customs. And it could be that those modules are really cheap clones from the "original" DFPLayer. But maybe Iam just overcautious

Maybe it will be necessary to sync (or trigger it at the correct part of the code) with the kind of code needed for WS2812. We will see.
At the weekend I will try to find time to add sound. Maybe I can figure it out by myself

The time for my projects is also a big problem for me. That´s why I always try to gather everything I need, before I start. So it could be I start to build the Enterprise much later than I would like to.

Your ability to write a working code without having the parts to test it is astounding and a great skill. So how can you help quicker with just a piece of wood???

What about using a breadboard?

PS: rather a bumpy but helpful forum than a super working one without great help

Hi Hans,

thanks for your praise. The big part of this work is made by you

I don´t order over AliExpress. For me it feels kinda cheesy and I always think about customs. And it could be that those modules are really cheap clones from the "original" DFPLayer. But maybe Iam just overcautious

Maybe it will be necessary to sync (or trigger it at the correct part of the code) with the kind of code needed for WS2812. We will see.
At the weekend I will try to find time to add sound. Maybe I can figure it out by myself

The time for my projects is also a big problem for me. That´s why I always try to gather everything I need, before I start. So it could be I start to build the Enterprise much later than I would like to.

Your ability to write a working code without having the parts to test it is astounding and a great skill. So how can you help quicker with just a piece of wood???

What about using a breadboard?

PS: rather a bumpy but helpful forum than a super working one without great help