Flux Capacitor from Back to the Future

My wife bought me a showing of Back to the Future at a local theater with a meet and greet with Christopher Lloyd after. Well that just means I need to make a flux capacitor to bring along! After some research from www.myfluxcapcitor.com and searching this site for help I was able to put it all together and keep it under $100.

First we need to draw up a plan. I usually use sketch up, but paper this time.

First thing I did was start to wire up an Arduino Uno as I had never programmed one of these. I did write a few webpages back in '97 with wordpad, that was the extent of my coding abilities.

A screen accurate electrical box was $125, so mine was made from poplar wood.

Traced a round corner and hit it to the belt sander.

Bought some acrylic rods, balls and tubes off Amazon and ebay. Cut them, sanded from 80-500 grit and polished them. You can also polish with a dremel.

Here I masked off the outside of the blocks and painted them silver.

I picked up some terminal ends off Amazon to use and made them shorter. I also made the cylinders from pine, coated it with glue and sanded it. These are the "solenoids" for the Fluxing.

Bought some yellow/red spark plug wires off Amazon ($40!) and used those. Came in a set of 8, so I have a few more.

Cut a hole for the window and used a piece of plexiglass. The trim is from MccMastercarr and was $15 I think.

Found a vintage label maker at work to do the labels. You can also buy this label maker at Staples or Amazon around $15. Pipes are PVC from the hardware store painted silver.

Putting in the electronics. We have 16 LEDS with a resistor on each, DIP switches to change programs, and powered by a 9volt or wall adaptor. I also picked up some connectors at Amazon so it can come apart. There is a motion sensor on the bottom so it turns on when you walk by it.

Final prop all made and done:

Here is a youtube video of it:

DIY Flux Capacitor Prop - YouTube

I have my code posted here. Feel free to use it as the main code I took from this site (Flux Capacitor Sketch - LEDs and Multiplexing - Arduino Forum) Thanks to Elykem for getting me started with a basic code. I tried to past in a "code" box but it is too long.

Awesome! And even prooved by Doc Brown.

Any recommendations on removing the code for the sensor? I just want to be able to turn it on and run the program. Mind you, I'm not a programmer by any means. I have it all on the bread board and your code will run the lights as they are suppose to if it is hooked up to the computer, but because I do not have a sensor hooked up to it, I can't run it without the computer being connected...

Looks like this is an old post, but i though it was worth a try to contact you. Unfortunately I have very little skill in this Arduino world. I am trying to build a flux capacitor like you did with the motion control and extra lights. I belie understand the first part of your code well enough to set it on the Arduino board. However, I not completely sure how to completely wire it, any chance you have a wiring schematic that would go along with the code. I would really really appreciate any help you can offer. It is super awesome that Christopher Lloyd and he sign your flux capacitor.

This is great and awesome, but without a schematic it's very tough to see where every wire goes which kinda makes sharing the code not really overly helpful.

Anyone get a wiring diagram on this? Thanks

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