Sonic Screwdriver Mark Vii

I just finished another Sonic Screwdriver commission with a pretty cool set of features.
This sonic's magic:
It lights up and makes the correct sound for the show
It turns Tvs on and off
A second button controls a laser pointer
The emitter can be extended from the handle
It is rechargable and can charge phones
It still does not work on wood.

As always if I am unclear or you would like to know more, please leave a
comment or message me and I will do what I can to explain/help. For instance, due to a comment I recently uploaded my sketchup design file I used for this prop, which adds to the quality of this instructable. If you know how to use the program, it is easy to pull out dimentions. If not, it is a really easy program to use.

The standard electronics can be found at:

https://www.instructables.com/id/Working-Sonic-Screwdriver-Version-30/

More information on my other projects can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/dancorriganproperties/

The handle of this sonic screwdriver was saltwater etched to give the cool textured effect, then a slot was milled for the buttons to follow using my Taig lathe.

How it works:

Paint on an electrical insulator (I used nail polish here) where you don't want etched

Make some very saturated salt solution

Connect the negative end of a 5-9 volt power source to a q-tip and the positive end to the part to be etched

Dip the q-tip into the salt solution and drag it slowly across the area to be etched. It will hiss and slowly eat away the metal.

The higher voltage you use the more agressive your etching will be, but it will also produce chlorine gas which smells terrible and damages any soft tissue it touches (lungs, eyes, etc.)

A better set of instructions can be found here:

https://www.instructables.com/id/Salt-Water-Metal-Etching/

To power this sonic I minimally modified a portable phone charger that fit inside the handle of the sonic. By adding two wires to the USB connection I was able to tap into the 5 volt power source and still use the charger for its intended purpose, charging phones.

To save repitition I put these instructions in their own instructable: https://www.instructables.com/id/Rechargable-Batte...

With the battery done I expoxied it in place using JB-Weld and left those pieces alone overnight.

In my design, the top of the handle has three small brass cylinders that match up with the claws.

I started with a piece of 1" hexagonal aluminum in my lathe, cleaning the bottom face of the part

I then marked the part by cutting a small groove in the face with my cutting tool and used the headstock nut on the lathe to divide the part three times.

The holes were then drilled using an 1/8th inch drill bit

After turning down the bottom of the part to fit inside the handle, I drilled the centre hole big enough for the plastic tube I was using and machined the correct profile into the top of the part.

A bit of epoxy holds the brass rod inserts in place (not shown)

The buttons for this sonic had to move with the emitter setup, so
I built them into the plastic tube that slides through the top of the handle and connects to the emitter head.

To make the part I started by epoxying a stopper made from metal tubing onto the bottom of some 5/8" rigid aquarium tubing so that the buttons would not slide out of the handle.

I then drilled out two holes for the buttons. The top button turns on the lights, sound and tvbgone and the bottom one turns on the laser pointer.

After a bit of clean-up I fit all of my electronics into this assembly leaving header pins on the top and bottom to connect to the emitter and battery respectively

Once the buttons and circuitry were in place I could begin assembling the sonic in its final form.

To start I added a piece of rigid black cloth around and below the buttons to cover the wires connecting the battery to the electronics. When the emitter is retracted the cloth slides past the battery.

The 1/2 inch copper adapter was then added (fits over the plastic tubing like a glove and is epoxied in place)

Once the battery was connected to the circuitry (and the circuit tested) I slid the whole thing together and epoxied the top of the handle in place.

On the copper connecter part of the emitter are three small brass tubes. They each have a hole drilled in the side that lines up with holes drilled in the copper connector. One holds a laser and another holds the IR LED that turns tvs on and off.

One of the flashier parts of this sonic screwdriver are the claws I added to the front end.

To make them I first printed out my design in scale using my cad software.

I then took a piece of copper sheet and sandwiched it between two brass sheets using epoxy and glued three designs to one side of the sandwich.

Once the epoxy was dried I drilled the holes in the claws using a drill press and a 1/16th inch drill bit

I then rough cut the pieces using a band saw and filed/sanded them to their final shape.

With the pieces in hand I used JB-Weld to epoxy them to the emitter. To prevent them from moving while the epoxy dried I used a bit of low temp hot glue to hold them in place.

The next day the hot glue peeled off easily and the sonic was complete.

Thank you for reading my instructable. More of my work can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/dancorriganproperties http://dancorrigantheatre.wix.com/home

If you would like to talk to me about a prop commission, please private message me.