Here is the concept for the needles:


Programming the 3d printer:


Printing:


The first 3d print failed horribly:


Laser cutting the needles:


All cut:


Test fitting:


Glued together:


I used hot glue to get the webbing effect the needles seem to have:


Finally... LED testing, it's blue but that's all we had:


The moment of glory:



I should add, the needle shown above is just a test run to try different methods of gluing and lighting it. It has 90degree angles to it, so they are not really glued together efficiently, or attractively. One facet was frosted, one side was bare, and one was webbed, the third was left off so I could mess with the other three. Tomorrow or Tuesday I will be cutting the edges of the needles with the help of a fellow TechShop member, and starting bondo on the needler itself.

hmmmmm, yeup, that's real pretty. great job so far man

Hahaha the drawing-plan is hilarious!
But let me just say, the test needle looks awesome! The glow is perfect and I really like the "webbing" effect with the hot glue.
My only critique might be that the needle looks a little bit large for the needler, but that might just be how it looks in the picture.

You're making a boy Needler? LOL! :P

It's looking awesome, bro! Watch where you aim that thing, though. You can poke an eye out(or several) with that thing.

Now we just need the needle rifle.

Wow Katsu you impress me more and more. I agree with Annanymous in saying that the needles look a bit small, but it could be the photo. Looking forward to more updates. SUBBED.

Wait, she thinks they look too big, you say they're too small? I am a bit concerned about width, the length won't be an issue since they will be sunken into the needler further when it's done.

Haha, It is sharp, I jabbed myself with one of the unglued needles earlier. I want them removable so I can avoid stabbing or breaking of needles when in transportation. It is a boy for now, for lack of any LEDs than blue, but I've got a bunch of pink ones ordered on eBay now, hopefully I can get it a gender change quickly enough!

As for the length, I will hopefully get to mess with it when I get the body done! I agree it looks a bit long there, it was designed to be an inch longer than the in-game one so I'd have room to cut it if need be, and also to account for the recessed space inside the needler's body. It needs to go in a bit so the bright glow of the LED is hidden, so that we only see the refracted light off the surface of the needle.

Any input/suggestions are greatly appreciated, so thank you all! It helps me get in the right direction.

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Today I got the Jig successfully printed, and my friend started to experiment with using it to get a 45 degree angle cut on the acrylic triangles, the first few were experimental, and the laser was curling the triangle tips at first. We found out that flipping the triangle to be cut tip to base instead kept it from warping too much. After an hour and a half of experimenting, we got four good cuts, but ran out of time to glue them together.


These are some of the failed ones (curled tips, didn't cut all theh way through, etc)


The needler itself got some radical restructuring today too. I started bondoing it (Not shown), and more importantly, removed the first part.

I made the decision to cut it up because rondo is obviously not going to be strong enough for this gun:


It was not happy about being cut, some areas clearly got more rondo than others and I ended up having to take a hack saw to them.


But I finally got it apart. This will let me install the electronics and mounting plates more easily, and give me time to ponder how I'll do the battery. I'm thinking I'll put it in the stock.


Eventually I want the entire thing to come apart for easy molding, but no clue how I'll re-attach everything.
Do the needles look TOO perfect? The H1/2/3 needles are prisms, while the Reach ones are like stalacmites, mine seem to be somewhere in-between... Perhaps I'll make an extra set and tinker with grinding them for that rougher rounder look.

i know i'm new so i understand if you don't like my ideas or opinions but anyway
1 awesome build i wanted to do one from ce with glowing needles but i decided on the M90b variant and the M6D (shotgun and halo ce magnum)
2 it appears that the webbing (while it may look amazing) appears to be on the outside which will affect the texture
3 the needles in reach also appear to have strange bumps/growths (http://images.wikia.com/halo/ja/images/3/36/Needler.jpg zoom in and you should see it)
4 the needles also appear to not diffuse the light while it should produce a lesser amount of glowiness so tou might be able to sand them or something

keep in mind it's you project so do what you want i'd just like to offer suggestions and that these are ideas and may not work the way you want so don't try this on a needle use a scrap or something good luck

Cool project, Katsu. I look forward to seeing your progress with this. It appears you have some pretty neat toys at your disposal (between the wacom, 3D printer, and laser cutter). Do you work with these things as part of your employment or what's your setup?

Can you share the scale you've used? This was pert near my first true model (I can see some issues I'd like to address) and it warms my heart to see her (he, in your case) built. Thank you and good luck proceeding.

Looks cool man,
Pep work... nice!
Needle construction... nice!
Webbing inside the needles... nice! (if there was a way to allow the light to defuse through the whole needle evenly... nicer!)

Great work.
Cereal.

Hey no sweat, I love the input because it helps me see it from another point of view.
1) Go with the guns you like, or whichever are most easily at your disposal, you don't want to get in over your head and give up, so good luck with yours!
2) The webbing is on the inside, it's just a really crap-tacular camera, haha! It does look like they're on the outside though.
3) The bumps and rounding are what make me want to grind these ones so they're less perfect, I totally agree mine are too straight, it will depend on how grinding tests go tomorrow that decides if I stick with straight or try and grind them unevenly.
4) You are right, the needles weren't diffusing light right in those two pictures of it installed in the gun especially. Those pictures were taken before I webbed the inside with hot glue. I didn't notice the excessive glow before though, I will take your suggestion and try and mess with the LED to make it not as intense at the base.

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Thanks satchmo, great file-maker (you) leads to good products! The wacom is an ooooold intuos3 I got years ago, the other stuff is all courtesy of the TechShop, a fantastic resource if you live near one (though they have intuos4 there, but I usually post from home):
http://techshop.ws/
I get a student discount, so it's pretty nifty, and the amount of usage I get out of the machines makes up for the cost I think.
As for the scale, I stuck with the one from Halo3 of 57.8cm. I had read somewhere that it was similar in length to the H3 model, but with the stock upturned instead, and overall this scale also fit my hands the best. What issues were there? I wanna know what to look out for on mine!

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Thanks, I am open to suggestions on diffusion as I'm flying by the seat of my pants here. I had heard of a gel I may be able to shoot inside, but I don't know if that will affect the webbing. I'm going to try different angles and depths for the LEDs when I get my pink ones to try and get it to look a bit nicer, this was more of a "holy crap, the needle looks cool in my hand" and then feverishly cutting a giant hole in the top of the gun and cramming the nearest LEDs I had inside to see if it looked cool there too, not well planned! I could also try frosting the pieces with a sandblaster, but not sure if that alone will be enough, as the piece I sanded didn't diffuse much better than the clean piece. This idea might work a bit better:
http://www.instructables.com/id/how-...p5/Youre-Done/
The blue ones were a strip, so they were pretty one-directional and focused, I have some bulbs on order I will try this method on.

Another option would be to run EL wire through the middle of the needle, might give it more of a uniform glow. Just design it so when you put it in the gun it completes the electrical circuit. I haven't worked with EL wire before personally, so I'm not sure if you can just cut it to the length you want like you can with regular wires, but if you can I think it would have a better overall effect.

i loled!!! Xd!!

Looking good! I personally dont think that the needles look too perfect. Perhaps you could mess around with the height of each one (how far they are pushed into the needler) to make them look a little bit more varied if thats what you want?