Animatronic Clausometer from the movie "Elf"

Note - I was trying to get more space for audio clips and improve the animations for an update but the lower audio sample rate caused distortion that would hit resonances in the Clausometer housing and sounded terrible. It would take a slight redesign to fix the resonances so the update is shelved for now at least. Sorry about that.

This model is a fan art version of the “Clausometer” featured in the movie “elf”. It features animated lights, a moving indicator, and plays sound clips that make the Clausometer Spirit level rise and fall. It features tap detection and that’s how you communicate with it. It has a USB-C interface/power cord. Makers can create their own sound clip sets to customize the Clausometer for any Christmas movie or sounds they like.

The Clausometer uses a special microcontroller from Adafruit called the Prop-Maker. It has an audio amplifier, servo output, an accelerometer, 5V neopixel power and signal source, and a switch input (which this model doesn’t use), all brought out on connectors ready to go. It’s an amazing little board about the size of a stick of gum and has all sorts of other capabilities for those interested.

Note for those interested - if you are curious about the programming and audio quality but are a bit anxious about buying all the parts up front, if you just get the Prop-Maker from Adafruit and have or get an appropriate speaker (the Adafruit speaker fits this model though), you can load the code and see what you think. The software will still run without the servo or neopixels. The accelerometer is built-in so you can try out the tap interface and hear how it works. The neopixels and servo are just window dressing. If you have a spare servo you can get an idea of the motion aspect, though.

There is some soldering required for this model but it isn’t super precision. You can see the wiring in the photos and judge if you’re up to it. The gauge face and diffuser is a fairly precision print and filament needs to be well behaved. The fine black lines in the gauge face can be tough to print clean and not mar the colors. Get a good print though, and it’s pretty cool looking.

One reason for using this microcontroller is it looks like a USB drive to computers you plug it into. There’s a directory called “sounds” and you just copy specifically formatted wav files in there. The wav file names must start with a “U” or “D” for cheer Up and cheer Down. The next character is a digit for how much spirit is affected by the sound clip on a 0 to 9 scale. If the file name doesn’t start with a U or D and then a number it is ignored except for three special files used for prompts and for Santa’s sleigh bells. There’s not a lot of space so keep them short. The files supplied are about all that will fit so you can get a feel for what you can replace them with if you replace them.

You can put as many sound files as will fit in the disk free space in the /sounds directory. Sample sounds are included but you may want to record your own. Try for a balance between U and D files and their cheer impact numbers. It can end up at the extremes if it gets a few impactful Ups or Downs in a row. Keeping them in balance will keep the cheer more centered. Skew to more ups and/or bigger numbers for the effects will cause it to spend more time at higher cheer levels if you want.

For example, you might name a clip of Buddy saying “He’s an angry elf!” about Miles Finch, “D6angelf.wav”. The program selects wave files randomly and plays them. If D6angelf.wav is picked, it starts playing the clip and uses the D and 6 to animate the cheer pointer down by a fairly large percentage. Similarly, if U4liksml.wav ("I just like to smile, smiling's my favorite.") is picked, it will play the clip while animating the cheer pointer up a medium amount. Follow the 8.3 naming convention - “U#abcdef.wav” and “D#abcdef.wav”. You can name the abcdef part whatever you want. Wav files are monaural 16-bit, 22050Hz sample rate clips. It will actually take files with longer filenames, but I don’t know the practical limit. 8.3 works fine though. Too long and they will be skipped.

Please note - for copyright reasons I cannot supply sounds from the Elf movie. Instead, this model is supplied with public domain sounds ready to go from the movie “It's A Wonderful Life”. It's convoluted even there - Thanks to an error, copyright on the dialog and the movie images themselves was lost and those are in the public domain. The story and some music is still under copyright and Paramount owns those so Paramount controls movie showings.

Required parts:

Adafruit Prop-Maker (https://www.adafruit.com/product/5768) - $19.95

Speaker 4 ohm, 5W, 40mm dia (https://www.adafruit.com/product/3968) - $4.95

Adafruit Flora Neopixels 3 packs of 4 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1260) - 3 x $6.50 (11 Flora neopixels required)

Optional: Adafruit 30 Neopixels/m strip - preferably white but black works too - 1m strip (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1376) - $16.95

270 degree micro servo (Amazon ASIN B0D5YBL2JX or equivalent) - $16.99/4 (may be able to find singles elsewhere)

6” diameter, 1/16” thick clear lucite/plexiglass lens (Amazon ASIN B09BJ5Z1KR) - $6.30/2 (1.5mm or 1mm thick will also work)

3 each 4mm long by m.4 setscrews to secure the gauge back, and 2 each m.2.5 screws to secure the Prop-Maker

wire, solder, thick cyanoacrylate, silicone seal, a USB-C cable and 500mA (minimum) power source, 1/4” or 3/8” wide thin double-stick foam tape

Optional: “Large” Engine Turn adhesive vinyl for front panel (Amazon ASIN B073SM3ZBZ) - $21.95

Printing:

It's pretty straightforward. The model uses red, white, yellow, black and light gray Bambu PLA for the dial, and I used copper and silver Bambu Silk PLA for the housing, bezels, and speaker megaphone. I used the older silk which has been discontinued. The new gold and silver silk Bambu PLA+ should work well and look nice too! But silks really set off the housing, megaphone, and bezels. There are two indicator needles and plugs - identical - just in case one isn’t the best.

The gauge face is basically like printing a light box design. It's 3 layers of color with a white diffuser, servo, and neopixel LED mount. The gauge background is light gray which sets off the white snowflake nicely but you can always go with white. There are some fine lines in the black rings to be faithful to the original Clausometer and that's where strings can cause problems. The gauge face is the most difficult print in this model. Keep any filament strings or bits from contaminating other colors and you’ll be handsomely rewarded. 😁

I included the housing in two orientations. The front face down version is probably best if you aren't going to use the engine turn vinyl on the face to pick up the texture from a textured PEI build plate. Or if you are going to use appliqué, use a smooth plate and print front face down. The vertical/normal orientation will keep layer lines horizontal but uses more filament and might make for better appliqué adhesion. The gauge bezel and housing bezel dress the appliqué edges and keep them from lifting. I printed front face down on textured PEI just to test and while not ideal for using an appliqué, it also works fine.

For printing the bezels I tried the experimental scarf seams but they seemed more disruptive than a single aligned seam.

Assembly:

First - drop down to the programming section and get the software loaded up on the Prop-Maker. Getting that out of the way while it’s just a board will make testing easier.

Run a strip of ¼” or 3/8” wide double stick foam tape around the gauge Flora neopixels support to secure the neopixel strip you’ll add later - but don't remove the outer backing. It butts up against the gauge Flora neopixel mounts but doesn’t overlap them. See photo showing proper placement.

Position and seat the servo mount legs in the three square pockets around the gauge center hole. Make sure they are bottomed and square and secure with some thin superglue applied carefully with a toothpick or precision applicator.
 

Position all the neopixels in their pockets in the gauge diffuser - double check orientation with the photo - the markings have to be oriented just as shown - and glue in place with small dabs of cyanoacrylate. Orient them the wrong way and wiring will be difficult. There are markings on the front/LED side of the neopixels that show polarity and data direction. You have to use the Adafruit logo orientation on the back when assembling since they are face down. Anyway, use the photos as your guide and follow the color coding. It has to be connected as shown.

I used bare solid wire from CAT5 network cable to do the wiring between neopixels. It's easily formable but holds its shape. Wire the power rails first (I used one long piece for each) then add the short data jumpers that just run from data out on one neopixel to the data in on the next. You don't use a long wire on the data jumpers. Just the rails. Each data jumper is only as long as it takes to go from one neopixel to the next in a daisy chain. When routing to the last neopixel in the string, note that the negative rail wire gets routed so it doesn't block the servo body but make sure there are no shorts with data or the positive rail. It makes more sense when you have it in front of you. Solder about 8” red, black, and yellow wires to the Flora in the 0-10 slot (the first Flora in the chain) as shown in the photos. Those will get cut to length and connected to the Prop-Maker later.

(Note - the 30 neopixel strip discussed next is optional. If you don’t connect it, the software will never know. It provides a little more antique look with hot spots behind the gauge digits and by the Clausometer text, and gives more even illumination across the gauge, but it’s not required.)

Next is the neopixel strip. Remove the silicone sheath from the Adafruit neopixel strip and cut a clear length of 10 complete neopixels on the cut lines. Solder about 6" light gauge color coded wires to the Gnd, 5V, and Din lands next to the large white arrow. The arrow denotes the data direction into the strip. Now carefully position and secure the neopixel strip to the foam tape you applied earlier such that the end with the wires is positioned close to the Flora neopixel in the 0-10 gauge marker. The really critical part is the positioning of the LEDs above the Clausometer text. You want one neopixel in the very center of the flat piece and its near neighbors symmetric on either side. Note - the photos showing LED placement were taken before I added the flat plate but positioning is the same.

Connect the Din (yellow) lead on the neopixel strip to the Flora Dout (arrow pointing out from the LED - not the arrow pointing in/towards the LED) on the last Flora in the string of round neopixels (see photo). Connect the positive and negative wires you soldered to the neopixel strip to the positive and negative rails you soldered onto the round Flora neopixels.

Note - the power wires for the neopixel strip get soldered to where the power arrives from the Prop-Maker to the Flora neopixels. Neopixels pull a fair current and the Floras and the neopixel strip get their power in parallel to reduce voltage drops. The signal wire in for the neopixel strip gets connected to the signal wire out on the last Flora in the string of round Flora neopixels. The neopixels are a daisy chain for the signal. The Prop-Maker sends out a series of pulses that tell each neopixel how bright and what color to be. There is no addressing. The Prop-Maker relies on the neopixels all being in a proper daisy chain that starts at 0 on the gauge, goes around the gauge markings to the neopixel in the 100 location, around the servo, and then into the strip of neopixels that illuminates the digits and text around the edge of the gauge.

Mount the 270 degree micro servo to the servo mounting plate using the two mounting screws supplied. (See photos) Note there are two self-tap screws and a machine screw. The self-taps are to mount the servo. The machine is to mount the indicator hand (which gets mounted later).

Screw the Prop-Maker to the mounting bosses on the gauge back noting orientation using m2.5 screws. Note that screws only fit the USB-C connector end because the connector block interferes with the other two. Attach the speaker wires to the speaker and secure the speaker into the mounting ring with a small dab of silicone. It should be a gentle friction fit but the silicone seal will make sure it never falls out. Run the speaker wires to the Prop-Maker, cut to appropriate length, strip and tin the ends, and secure in the terminal block speaker positions.

Thread the leads from the Flora neopixels up through the outer hole in the back plate and position the back plate so the alignment notch aligns with the notch in the outer circumference of the gauge face and diffuser. Use a couple of pieces of masking tape to hold the back to the gauge face and diffuser. Trim the leads to appropriate length, strip and tin, and connect to Prop-Maker terminal block. When trimming, don’t pull the leads tight. You want a little excess if you need to open the back up without disconnecting the wires. Connect dress and secure the USB cable using small wire ties for strain relief.

Power up the board using the USB cable but be careful not to bump it - it uses taps to stop the movement and record the value. The neopixels should all flash, you should hear a prompt from the speaker, and then hear the servo start moving (to 100). Just let it run until the LEDs hit full brightness and then the servo LEDs will dim back down as the servo will move back to 0. As soon as the servo stops moving and the LEDs are dark, unplug the USB cable from power. If you bumped the board, you may have terminated the move to 100 early but that’s ok. We just want it to be at 0 for now.

Now that we know the servo is at 0, gently position and press the indicator needle hub onto the servo so that the indicator is pointing properly at 0 on the dial. Plug it back in and without bumping the assembly, see if it truly starts at 0 and travels to 100 hitting the endpoint properly. As long as the travel is close to 0 to 100 on the gauge, we’ll fine tune later. Make any adjustments to indicator position and use the servo arm machine screw to tighten it down. Gently press the indicator needle screw cover home.

Get the bezel ring and turn it face down over something non-marring. Remove any protective film from the plexiglass circle and drop it into position in the bezel ring. Then drop in the spacer ring. Remove the tape from the gauge front and back and align their notches with the ridge on the inside of the bezel ring and slide them into place. There are three holes for 4mm long m.4 setscrews that engage the three bevels on the gauge back. Gently apply a little pressure to seat the back and gauge face while tightening up the setscrews.

Grab the big housing and position and apply appliqué to the front of the housing if you’re going to use it. You can run an X-Acto knife around the housing bezel mounting channel and around the hole where the Clausometer sits to remove excess. Be sure no excess appliqué protrudes into the housing bezel mounting channel. When it’s all trimmed up and looking good, use some thick cyano in the housing channel to secure the housing bezel and hold with masking tape or set it face down and weight the housing. Either way, be careful with the cyanoacrylate or whatever adhesive you use. These parts are very visible.

Once the housing bezel is all secure, align the outer ridge on the gauge bezel with the notch in the housing while feeding the USB cable out through the rear exit. Press the gauge home gently into the housing. It should be a medium friction fit. Note the small notches around the perimeter of the gauge bezel. Those can be used with a small screwdriver to pry the gauge back out should you ever need to.

Use the rear housing wire plug to secure the USB cable and set the speaker megaphone into its socket and press home. You might not want to glue the megaphone. If you do glue it, I’d suggest something easily removable like silicone seal. It’s a fair friction fit and if children decide to use it for peanut toss target practice, you can just remove the megaphone and shake out the pieces that make it past the protective “screen”.

Programming:

There is a ClausometerArchive.zip file in the files section. You need that along with the 3mf to print and use this model. Note that CircuitPython is covered by MIT’s license and the code.py file is open source. The software license is separate from the 3D print files which carry specific restrictions as outlined in the license accompanying the model and are for personal use only.

Expand the archive and read the How To Install The Software file. It has the steps to install but basically you…

1 - Press the BOOT button on the Prop-Maker as you plug it in and it mounts as RPI-RP2.

2 - Drag and drop the file in directory 1 - COPY TO PROP-MAKER… (the file to drag and drop is adafruit-circuitpython-adafruit_feather_rp2p4_prop_maker-en_US-9.2.0.uf2 - not the directory). The drive should remount as CIRCUITPY.

3 - Open CIRCUITPY and delete the files in it. They are dummy/placeholder files.

4 - Grab the two files and two directories in the archive directory 2 - COPY FILES INSIDE… and copy them to the CIRCUITPY drive.

When those finish copying, the Prop-Maker will reboot and Clausometer will flash red once, prompt “Tap for time” and then start scanning the indicator up on a 0 to 100 minutes scale. Just tap the housing when the indicator is at the number of minutes between primary animations. Clausometer will flash twice and reset the indicator.

It will then prompt “Tap for volume” and start scanning up again. Volume is on a 0 to 100% scale.

If Clausometer doesn’t detect a time tap, time defaults to 30 minutes between animations. If it doesn’t detect a volume tap, it defaults to 50% volume.

Clausometer plays the first animation and enters the time delay. During the time delay between animation events, Santa’s sleigh may be near and Clausometer might do a different animation.

When Clausometer is sitting in the delay loop, a tap on the housing will cause a flash and it will advance to the next animation.