#4970354
Hey there,

It seems to be impossible to find a place where I could get an authentic looking (and functioning) PKE replica. Is there a shop that does a custom job? I don't mind paying good money for a good quality product. I saw some on Etsy for $500 bucks, but they all looked very shitty 3D printed. Thanks for all the info in advance!
#4970356
In the past, the P.K.E. Meter was one of the rarest props to see replicated (beaten only by the Giga Meter)... Due to the complexity of the electronics, I think we only saw a handful of fully-functional replicas until MattyCollector produced their excellent replica.

I believe interest in building P.K.E. replicas has been renewed now that the Matty replicas are becoming extortionately expensive... But I'm not familiar with anyone producing fully-assembled P.K.E. Meter kits, and one of the few people who I believe is offering electronics is a banned and blacklisted seller from this forum.
charliewarner liked this
#4970357
There are several people who have built them for themselves and then released digital files for 3D printing and electronics. But they don't manufacture/sell fully built PKE's.

One offers files to fully 3D print one, another offers files to convert a vintage Iona Shoe Polisher into an accurate PKE.
Someone else in the Arduino group is working on an electronics kit to be available for sale but it's still in the late prototyping stage.
All of these can be better than the Matty PKE, which looked great but had inaccurate electronics.

Personally I did a major rebuild of the Halloweencostumes PKE with more accurate lights/sounds, it looks great but it's still essentially a toy. I tried to do an Iona conversion but I accidentally bought the wrong model, and nothing else has popped up on ebay since then (I'm in Australia so it's a major challenge). I'm probably going to 3D print one next, but I only have an FDM printer so I may need to ask a friend to resin print the tiny details for me.

If you can find someone who can 3D print the parts for you, and if you're not afraid of sanding/smoothing/painting the parts and doing the electronics, then the above options are good to go.

But I don't think it's possible to just buy one at this stage.
#4970646
I still hope to offer some sort of hyper-accurate PKE kit based on the one I've been working on for many, many years. You can see some of the details in this build thread:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=46251

As I note in the thread, it's been a very slow process, interrupted by client work for my computer animation business, home maintenance, and general malaise. I've recently made progress on the wings, which were the last major element to work out. The plan is to encapsulate the electronics in resin. I hope to work on the master and its mold in the next few weeks. If that doesn't work then I'll try 3D printing them.

I'll probably be making tweaks to my shell master and silicon molds to get better yields with my casts.

I'm not looking to make big money offering kits; I'd mainly like to recoup the cost of the materials I've bought over the years. A big challenge for a kit would be how much of the electronics would have to be pre-built. There's some very fine soldering involved with the PCB I've designed, and I doubt too many people would be comfortable getting just a bag of loose electronic components. So do I solder everything myself for potential kits? My labor would add to the cost. As it is the electronic parts alone are $130 or so (assuming you can still buy all of them.)

I think Benofkent Props will be offering some sort of PKE kit in the near future. I have no idea how accurate it would be.

Cheers.

Shawn Marshall
#4975744
I finished my Mk 1 version of this Iona PKE Meter back in September, just in time for the Rose City Comic Con.

Here's video of the finished prop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gct2NALXWS4&t=17s

In the default mode the lights chase slowly when the wings are half up and fast when they're full up. Touching the upper left contact switch activates "classic" mode, where the light chase is controlled by the potentiometer in the handle. Touching that same switch for two seconds turns of the audio amp.

Here are the guts:

Image

Unfortunately, the Teensy 3.2 microcontroller that drives the electronics has been impacted by the chip shortage and won't be available again for months, so my coding partner and I are looking to use an Adafruit ItsyBitsy instead. He's working out the code, and I'm working out the components. The hope is to build in the ability to switch between the GB1 and GB2 chase patterns. I'll have to redesign the circuits and a new PCB.

Now that I've worked with this configuration I want to tweak the shell design a bit, make new silicone molds and new casts. These batteries were NiMH in an attempt to replicate the original prop, but I didn't use the right size, and they're being more hassle than they're worth. I want to use a LiPo battery of some sort to free up space in the main body to accommodate a bigger speaker.

The wings are 3D printed, and they're working pretty well.

So maybe we'll have kits ready in the 2nd quarter of 2023? No promises.
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