Halo Infinite Cylix Light

What this Instructable is:

Like the last Instructable I published, this is only meant to be a rough guideline to follow. Designs are left up to you, the reader, to create and implement; I just hope to provide inspiration.

What this Instructable is not:

Again, like my previous Instructable, I will not be detailing the "how exactly...?" and "why did you...?" behind this project - though, feel free to ask in the comments.

After going through Halo Infinite, I quite liked the design of the Cylixes. So much so that I decided to make my own. While slightly simplified, I followed the design cues of the game to create a token to remember it by. This project is somewhat more complex than my previous one, simply due to it being much more intricate, with multiple layers that needed to be glued together in the correct order, lest the result not make sense.

• Baltic Birch Plywood (3mm, 6mm)
• Basswood (1.5mm)
• Optix Acrylic (for the base)
• 3mm clear acrylic (for the engraved emblems)
• Arduino Nano Every
• 5V addressable RGB LED strips
• Stranded wire

To give this object more character, I decided to stain it. I used General Finishes Water-Based Dye Stain, specifically, Ebony. I had wanted to use Pewter, but it ended up being too light for my liking, and looked more dirty than like the grey stain I wanted. I lightly sanded some of the parts to bring out more grey tones.

I used a 100W CO2 laser cutter to cut out the designs I created. I used 6mm plywood to form a thick base, 1.5mm basswood for the layers with fine details, and 3mm plywood for the layer with the acrylic engraving to provide proper spacing.

Since this is a multi-layer structure and it's important to have the details line up, I could not stack everything up at once and hope for the best. I had to go layer by layer, ensuring that no features were misaligned. With this design, it was not possible to provide alignment features, save for one part - the layer with the acrylic; inserting it during the gluing of that layer ensured that it was spaced properly and that it would not bind when inserted later. The acrylic is free-floating, not attached to the rest of the model; it's kept together by slots in the base.

While the glue was drying, I put together the electronics. I used some scrap RGB LEDs from a previous project and an Arduino Nano Every to power them; the soldering wasn't the cleanest, but it is functional and will be hidden from view regardless. Before assembling the transparent base, I tested the colours to make sure they came out like I had wanted.

After peeling off the protective paper from the engraved layers, everything was ready to be slotted together. As mentioned above, the acrylic is free-floating; this is because I wanted to have removable faceplates in case I wanted to have a different engraving on the Cylix (as there are plenty to choose from).

And here we go - a finished Cylix cataloguing your favorite specimen. Better hope it's nothing too dangerous. . .