Bluetooth hack

[gfish]

I was browsing Etsy the other day, and I noticed someone selling "steampunk communicators". As in Star Trek TOS flip communicators. Which looked pretty neat, but they were display only. No working parts.

"Well, that's kind of silly," I said to myself. "How hard could it be to take a cheap Bluetooth earpiece and make a steampunk version that actually worked with your cell phone?"

One $20 Best Buy purchase later, I started to find out.



First I worked out a simple mounting system using 0-80 screws and a backing plate. Then I started experimenting with faceplate templates. The important thing was that the buttons (power, volume up, volume down) still needed to work. I did this in OpenOffice Draw, by the simple expedient of scanning the circuit board and drawing the plate template directly onto this image. Here you can see the second plate after I kept cutting away bits of it until the buttons worked. The printout shows the third plate design, incorporating the new changes.

(Those two weird lines on the template are due to a very annoying bug which seems to prevent you from merging shapes if you're bridging the hole in one. I worked my way around it later by inverting the shape, but grrrr.)



Here is the third revision in brass. The buttons worked (a bit stiff, but certainly functional)! Except I suddenly realized it looked unpleasantly like the Golden Arches. That was a minor enough change not to require a separate iteration in brass, but I did modify the shape a bit. Now it needed some decoration, and I've been having such fun with brass etching...



The lovely and talented ladydrakaina was kind enough to donate her calligraphy skills. This is the result after I touched it up using GIMP. Which I thought was going to look awesome once etched, but I wanted to up my game a bit when it came to the etching. So far I've been etching, spraying with black paint, and sanding down the raised, unetched sections. Which works, but the paint is a bit flat, visually, and takes forever to dry. So I wanted to try aging/antiquing the surface chemically.



After some web research I decided to try using ammonia. I took some scrap brass, including some etched pieces, and tried both submersing them in ammonia and just exposing them to concentrated fumes. What seemed to work best was quick submersion followed by extended vapors, but the results were inconsistent. I think the surface needs to be very carefully cleaned first, but more testing is needed.



But I didn't let that stop me tonight -- blame the caffeine. I brushed ammonia over the etched piece, and then let it soak in the fumes above a small pool of ammonia. Blech.



The end result was very pleasing. Not quite the dark black-green I was aiming for, but still very acceptable. After a run to the Night Kitchen I got to work with my drill press and jeweler's saw.



...I think I overshot steampunk entirely and ended up in ancient Greece. Or maybe it's Elvish? Either way, I'm not complaining. I'm quite happy, in fact. It's definitely too heavy to wear without the ear loop now, but it's comfortable enough otherwise. The Bluetooth connectivity isn't noticeably impacted by the metal plate, either. It is, as they say, fully functional.

I'm going to have to set up an Etsy store tomorrow and see what I can sell these for. Now that I have the plate template and techniques down, cranking them out will be fairly easy. The patina will be a bit different on each, and I want to play with more faceplate decorations. A geometric one, one with gears, maybe a finger printish one? And I could always do custom ones as well. I also have some ideas for a much fancier Bluetooth hack, but I doubt I could get the price-point down low enough to really sell those.

Comments

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

I think it's Art Deco Steampunk.

[mdlbear]

Definitely art deco; I'm not so sure about the steampunk.

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't look out of place as part of a steampunk outfit, so I'm willing to claim it. It's certainly not the only possible application for it, though.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Deco rather than Noveau?

I'm still a big fan of the idea of doing a lot of 20's era -punkery. A little early for dieselpunk as such, but between the technical advances and social upheaval, what a wonderful time...

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

*goes and looks up art nouveau*
You may be right. I'm not very conversant with the distinctions.

[dymaxion.livejournal.com]

Mmm, Decopunk.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Noveaupunque.

[jedi-iwakura.livejournal.com]

If someone wants one they will pay for it if they can't make it on their own. But steampunkers on etsy are greatly into pieces that are as functional as they are hacked and I honestly would rather pay fir something already done up like this than try to do it myself... You might gave a pretty good market run on these if you can make a few and get featured in some aether-net sites. :D

[bigbumble.livejournal.com]

Fascinating.

[keystricken.livejournal.com]

Definitely Elvish, in my opinion. Very beautiful. I love seeing what you do in your spare braintime.

[solarbird]

That's quite nice. I'd enjoy seeing one in person sometime.

(If anyone still played Space: 1889, it'd be a lovely part of a set piece.)

[gement.livejournal.com]

My partner does. Well, he collects and reads all the sourcebooks, and he dreams.

[johno.livejournal.com]

I really like the look.

What is the final price you're thinking of?

Would you consider sending one down with Vixy for the Interfilk auction at Consonance?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I'd like to do one in the form of a broach, with a spring-loaded retractable earplug and a pivoting speaking tube connected to the mic.

And sure, if I'm making them that regularly, I'd love to send one down.

[tereshkova2001.livejournal.com]

Definitely Greco-Elven. And very cool.
The Night Kitchen needs to set up a cheese curd and bon bon Pneumatic Delivery System to the Agora.

[ionan.livejournal.com]

tylik is right, it's Nouveau. Which is just fine. Maybe it's more the French side of Steampunk vs. the British side.

You might drop by Hardwick's for some Brass ager. It's around 5-8 bucks for an 8-oz bottle, but it will give you more predictable results. It's in the hardware aisle.

[hpapillon.livejournal.com]

It's a cool looking THING except I have no use for a bluetooth earpiece so I look sulky. :)

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Well, do you need something else with a fancy etched brass plate on it? :)

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

I must have missed something, because I don't see how this answers the question of how hard it would be to make a flip communicator akin to those on classic Trek, and make it work with a cell phone. Or did it morph into communicator badges like those on Next Gen and onwards?

That said, it's an elegant and cool ear piece. Just FYI, how much does it weigh and how much might you charge to make one?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Well, I kind of got distracted thinking about the possibility of selling them on Etsy. I think I'm going to work on a flip-style version for myself, but I doubt I could sell them for enough to make it worthwhile. They would simply require too much detailed work.

I just put this one up on Etsy for $90. (Which is probably a bit high, but I want to sound out the market a bit before dropping it.) I haven't massed it yet, but this didn't actually add all that much weight. It's too heavy to wear without the ear loop, but quite comfortable with it.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

Make it leaf-shaped for full Elven.

[firebirdsfather.livejournal.com]

Dude! Awesome!