Star Wars Millennium Falcon

This project was built for my grandchild who was getting into Star Wars, at that time via a series of Star Wars cartoon shorts.

I do have to give credit to other Instructables' contributors, whose designs and ideas were a key element on the build.

1. Wood: Round Pine board, 2" x 1" wood strips, Plywood 1/2", Plywood 1/8", Hardboard tempered panel
2. Electronics: LED matrix, RGB LED strip, assorted LEDs (+ resistors), Rocker switches, Toggle switches, push button switches, Audio FX sound board, old battery alarm clock (display)
3. Pinstripes (Black and White), Plumber snake, Metal electric conduit
4. Miscellaneous: Really old computer parts before going to e-recycling.

1. Wood: Round Pine board, 2" x 1" wood strips, Plywood 1/2", Plywood 1/8", Hardboard tempered panel
2. Electronics: LED matrix, RGB LED strip, assorted LEDs (+ resistors), Rocker switches, Toggle switches, push button switches, Audio FX sound board, old battery alarm clock (display)
3. Pinstripes (Black and White), Plumber snake, Metal electric conduit
4. Miscellaneous: Really old computer parts before going to e-recycling.

Used the attached diagram as a rough guide. In red are the measures I used to build the Millennium Falcon

Started by marking the round pine board, and cut the windows and ripped the bottom to form the base

Cut from plywood the round entrance to the cockpit, and tied front and back using 2"x1" strips. Used a total of 8 strips angling them from the front towards the back.

Use tempered hardboard sections to create curved areas: The trim that goes on top (towards the entrance of the tunnel), the strips joining strips 2 to 4, starting from the bottom), and the side panels (between strips 1 and 2 at the bottom). Fill holes with putty and sand.

Paint the cockpit inside and outside. See pictures for color scheme used.

Attach electric conduit and plumbing snake (for decoration).

Cut 1/8" plywood to match the front round board.

1. The inside: Painted blue and attached pinstripes to simulate hyperdrive being engaged. It can be fixed to the front with Velcro, so it is easily removed.
2. The outside was painted gray, whit black areas where the windows would be located.

The console was built using 1/8" plywood, drilled and cut to allow for switches, LED, LED matrix, alarm clock.

The hyperdrive levers were made of wood and can be moved up and down, independently. The top (grip section) was made gluing spacers of different styles, with a ball bearing on top.

Paint the console before adding electronics.

For electronics I used a LED matrix, RGB LED strip, assorted LEDs (+ resistors), Rocker switches, Toggle switches, push button switches, Audio FX sound board, old battery alarm clock (display)

The rocker switches were used to turn on and off sections of lights in the console: 9 LED rows, 6 LED cluster, LED Matrix, Sound board (Also used in the cockpit and tunnel entrance), old battery alarm clock (just kept display. Connected to new switches and power supply)

The pushbutton switches are used to play sounds. Each pushbutton activates one channel which holds multiple sounds per channel, playing randomly a different sound in a channel every time a particular pushbutton is pressed. Examples are:

1. In the console: engine sounds, guns, communication between pilots and control, Star Wars music, sabers
2. In the cockpit: Light Side character voices, Dark Side character voices
3. In the tunnel: Different alarms, hissing doors, AT-AT Walker & other vehicles, etc.

The rotary switches were used to control which rows / columns / patterns light up on the LED matrix. It is interactive. As you rotate the switches, the colors and patterns change.

The illuminated toggles were used on their own but later connected to the cruising (blue) and attack (red) lighting on the cockpit.

The icons were downloaded and glued on wood. The white and blue squares are just painted wood squares. On the front of the console you see a couple of versions done over time.

The metal decorations came from an old computer. More to come later.

From an old computer prior to e-recycling, pulled aluminum heatsinks, coils, connectors, hard drive gears, miscellaneous electronic boards, CD ROM hardware, power supply panel, etc. (Just anything that would look uncommon).

On the first picture,

1. the left side with red light on background is a CD ROM hardware,
2. the one with blue light is the side of a power supply enclosure.
3. This was mounted on the left side of the cockpit.

On the right side of the cockpit,

1. built a miscellaneous board with switch, heatsink, LEDs, etc.,
2. Closer to the entrance a board displays characters from the Light and Dark Side of the Force.
3. The pushbutton next to the blue light plays voices from the characters on the Light side of the Force
4. The pushbutton next to the red light plays the voices of characters from the Dark side of the Force.

The tunnel entrance follows the same size as the entrance to the cockpit.

The tunnel is 14" deep.

Once the structure was completed, the inside was covered with tempered hardboard.

Drilled holes for the switches, pushbuttons and LEDs.

Entrance was painted black, wooden squares with downloaded images were glued, created sections with white pinstripe, and mounted switches.

I had some extra white under cabinet LED light, so added at the on the inside of the tunnel, and connected to power supply.

As shown on the pictures, the RGB LEDs were mounted on the inside of the tunnel structure. They were cut in sections of 3 so they could be powered with different colors. The LED strips were connected to the switches and the power supply.

Once the lights on the tunnel were tested, the outside of the tunnel structure was covered with tempered hardboard, patched, sanded and painted. The outside was painted light gray to match to console portion.

Tunnel entrance was attached to the cockpit, and one more test was performed to ensure all was working ok, and that the Milennium Falcon was ready for the next step.

To decorate the outside, I used different items that were laying around. Those were glued and painted.

Examples of items added, include: old TV coaxial cable, miscellaneous connectors, spacers, pieces from an old icemaker that had been replaced, metal ball from a faucet, 1" PVC strip to 'join' the tunnel and cockpit, old LEDs on a board, several pieces of plumbing snake, black pinstripe, etc.

A 5 year old would fit in the cockpit

A couple of years later, to address space limitations, I made some changes, to make the tunnel removable as needed, and added some of the switches/lights/images to the cockpit.