Animatronic Horus helmet- here we go again!

In several scenes in the movie Stargate you can see how the fans on the sides of the Horus and Anubis helmets rotate in a progressive manner, with the upper fan moving the greatest amount and the lower fan moving the least. It’s a really cool effect and the set of three fans on either side of the helmet was made to move using a single servo. It’s a really compact mechanism.

In order to replicate this I created a kinematic model of the mechanism using a free program from Autodesk called ForceEffect. This is an awesome bit of software that allows you to plot motions of all kinds of linkage mechanisms. I would have killed for software like this back in the day (20+ years ago) when designing suspension mountain bikes as I used to plot kinematics manually. The original helmet mechanics used helper springs to overcome the high leverage ratios- I have the benefit of modern digital servos that are much more powerful than the analog servos used when the film was made.

Screenshot%202016-03-30%20at%2012.18.29%20PM_zpsxwcgqqhf.jpg


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Screenshot%202016-03-30%20at%2012.19.15%20PM_zpsrcipgh4j.jpg


Here's the assembled mechanism. Note that the schematic shows the left side of the head and this is for the right side of the head. Still have a little bit of relief machining to do and drilling the fan blade mounting holes.

IMG_3141_zpsx9ojdri4.jpg

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This is a really cool and inventive project. I can't wait to see the finished project. You can always learn from a project like this and incorporate what you learn in future builds.
 
I love the ear fan movement in the film. It adds a nice bit of 'expression' to the masks. Very happy to see you've added it to yours.

How heavy is all this going to be when it's done? What kind of power supply will it require, and where will that be hidden?


-MJ
 
Mike J. said:
How heavy is all this going to be when it's done? What kind of power supply will it require, and where will that be hidden? -MJ
Click to expand...

The helmet is pretty light weight- it's a very thin fiberglass casting of exceptional quality. You could easily wear it at a convention but the owner of this helmet is making this as display piece. There are two small NiMH battery packs that are hidden in the helmet along with the radio receiver. There's plenty of room in the helmet for it- these helmets are positively huge.
 
Thanks! It's been a really long build as it's hard for me to get decent chunks of time to work on it but I'm really happy with how it's gone so far.
 
I've never been THIS amazed by a project for a very long time. The movement looks so wonderful, so fluid.
Dude you're absolutely crushing this project.
 
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