Some time ago, I built my first HAL 9000 replica. In addition to the famous faceplate (on the right), it also had four displays, a webcam, a IR motion sensor, and some push buttons. The build is documented in a previous blog post.
A little later, I wanted to build a few for friends. My first version had plenty of "bells and whistles" and it would not be feasible to reproduce all of this. So, for HAL 9000 version #2, I reduced it to the main functionality: Just the faceplate, but keeping the infrared motion sensor which triggers HAL's sound clips from the movie - this is what brings it to life and makes it a perfect office companion (provided, that there is a limit, how often audio clips are played).
Improvements
HAL v2 is built in a very similar way, however, with a few smaller improvements. Again, the design was based on the idea from Adafruit of using a 100 mm arcade button for the eye. This time, however, I decided to go with the clear button (instead of the red one recommended by Adarfuit, that I also used in my first version). The reasoning is that the original HAL had a fisheye lens which is made of clear glass - and the red color came from an internal filter. So, I decided to go with the clear button, and operate it with a red LED (instead of red button with white LED). And I'm glad, I did that - the result look really better! I keep the additional flat marble (which looks like a small internal lens) and the black cardboard.
The second big difference, is that this one is built using a laser cutter. With the laser cutter at hand, I decided to use it also for the speaker grille (which is now also made of plywood) to achieve the original spacing of the holes.
Here are the holders for the clear, red-colored 8mm straw hat LEDs.
At first, I was a little skeptical how the wooden speaker grille would look like. However, after applying the aluminum spray paint, it looks great.
And here comes the enclosure on which the face plate is mounted.
I admit, I was a little lazy regarding the box. I should have spent a little more time filling and sanding the slits and edges...
Here are the 8mm straw hat LEDs, mounted on their holders.
The PIRs (infrared motion sensors) come with white covers. But at AliExpress, But I found a seller who offered black covers. They cost as much as the sensors, but it's a real improvement for HAL's black case. The sensor is mounted at the bottom of the enclosure, and a white plastic piece wouldn't look good.
Here is the PCB with the Arduino pro mini and the DFPLayer mini.
And a view from the backside with the electronics.
And here is the final HAL 9000 v2. At the bottom, it has three elements:
- a 2.1mm socket for 5V power (e.g. from a USB charger)
- the PIR (infrared motion sensor) with a black cover
- a switch with three positions
The eye LED is constantly at low intensity. When the PIR senses motion, the eye LED goes to high intensity for 3-5 seconds (randomly) and HAL plays a sound clip from the movie (sound clips are not played more than every 1-5 minutes (the time interval increases when there is too much activity) in order not to make it too annoying. The three positions of the switch are: higher volume, lower volume, and sound off. If during operation, the switch is set to "off", HAL 9000 plays all sound clips from the "disable-sequence" in the movie, ending with "Daisy".
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