D7. Re-attach the Wobbulator assembly. Note that 2 screws hold
it down; this is a heavy piece and it needs the support. Finally, add
the power supply, hook everything up, plug it in, and admire. The
magic begins to happen as the warped part of the Wobbulator
does its thing, taking you to the Gamma Quadrant and beyond.
THE MOTIONDIZER
Our box uses a small 5m W red laser. Eventually we’ll beef it up — there’s lots of room here for more mojo
and fans to cool it.
M1. Take apart the powered speakers and remove the amp, which is usually a circuit board in one of
the speaker enclosures. Note and label the inputs, speaker outputs, and power input, then unsolder the
speakers from the amp.
M2. Prepare the speakers. Bend 2 lengths of pipe strap into
L shapes, to use as speaker supports; mine needed 3½" each.
Epoxy the back of each speaker to a support, removing paint
first if needed. The speaker wire tabs should face up for soldering accessibility, and the base of each L bracket needs room for
2 screws. It also helps to have some extra strap sticking up to
use as a handle, and I filed the edges round here, to avoid cutting
myself while messing with speaker alignment.
M3. Cover each speaker with a thin rubber membrane, gluing it
only around the perimeter. Using silicone adhesive (not model
cement) glue a small square of cork to the center of the membrane, and glue a small disk of front-surface mirror to the cork,
facing out. If the mirror came covered with protective film, leave
it on for now.
M4. Figure out your component layout on the base plate, as
in Step L2. Attach speaker C (the one angled up) to the baseplate using just 1 screw (you’ll add the second one later once
everything is aligned), then bend it back a bit. Similarly attach
speaker B (the one the laser will hit) after using a laser pointer
to figure out where it should go. With everything lined up, use a
pencil to mark the likely locations of the second screws.
M5. Solder your laser to its power supply and attach it where you
held your pointer. I mounted it using a pipe clamp that was a bit
wide for the laser, so I tormented the flanges until it fit. Verify that
the beam travels where it’s supposed to and then heads up from the
base plate at about a 90° angle. This is an iterative process of tweaking the angles of the laser and both speakers. Once everything lines
up, add those second screws to secure the speakers and laser.
117 Make:
