Stargate Project - My History

I’ve wanted to make an animated Stargate model for years now. I know there are designs on thingiverse; some are quite decent looking, but designing your own stuff is fun, it’s not like I have an awful lot else to do with my free time right now.

This project isn’t a new idea to me, I’ve actually been at it for years, granted at a dead stop. I’d like to change that.

2010 - kind of successful?

I actually have made a terrible Stargate before, back when I was in secondary school as my year 10 DT project. It was 3 laser cut sheet layers of black acrylic that when laid together formed a track for the ring, which had gear teeth around it. The base had a cut-out for another gear on a DC motor to drive this. Inside the track there was conductive tape tracks for the LEDs, which were red as that was the only thing I could get my hands on at the time. I actually remember only having 6 available inputs, so it started the dialling sequence from chevron 2, with 1 always lit. You triggered the sequence by pressing a button on the front, the ring span dumbly, but alternatingly as lights lit up. I don’t have any pictures of it, and I’m kind of sad I didn’t pay to take it home after being graded.

2017 - new project.

I joined Leigh Hackspace in 2017, and wanted a project to work on. After mulling for a bit, I realised it was obvious. A stargate. I figured a nice new environment to be productive in, it’ll be swell. It wasn’t. I aimed well beyond what I could reasonably have accomplished.

I’ll discuss the biggest snag remaining, I wanted ands still want an internalised drive for the gate, turns out tiny motors aren’t powerful, and sound like someone torturing a cat.

Here’s one of the later iterations of my previous design in trying to use an internal motor. This version did actually spin the ring without the cover plate, but the motor would quickly burn out, and would usually melt the mount; it’s a tiny brushed dc motor driving a worm gear mechanism.

I had given up hope, but I realised the potential for something quite cool. Could I build my own motor? This one failed too. Did make some interesting noises though. Though, spoiler, I’m going to continue investigating this approach.

And here’s the prototype graveyard.

2019 - this blog, a restart attempt

I started a blog at the end of 2019 in the hopes that it would give me an opportunity to write about my previous failures and analyse, share and learn from them. Turns out all that does is really demotivate you if you’ve still not got anything to show. So detailed mentions of that project end on this page. Since it kind of went no where.

2021 - this blog, again, restart #2

I’m starting this blog over, I’d like to use it to document what I’m going to do, rather than what I fucked up historically. I still want the internalised drive as my USP, and still think the EM drive offers the best path forward, just not how I did it in the past.

Let’s see where this leads.