Arduino brings Ghost Rider costume to life

Lengthy earlier than Nicolas Cage ever portrayed the character on the silver display screen, Ghost Rider appealed to an edgier subsect of Marvel’s viewers. We received’t do a deep dive into the character(s) and their Faustian offers, however suffice it to say that Ghost Rider is a human man who turns right into a flaming skeleton that rides a bike. The place that lands on the cool to cringe scale depends upon the actual look, however Andy’s Halloween costume recreation of Ghost Rider is unquestionably cool.

Andy’s costume features a skeleton masks and the suitable biker-style leather-based jacket, however actually involves life due to the added results. These embrace LED lighting and billowing flames. Andy can activate these utilizing a small handheld distant management. When he does, the LEDs illuminate items of pink material that flap in a wind created by large blower followers. These mimic the look of flames taking pictures out from the jacket.

An Arduino Nano 33 BLE board controls the LEDs (a complete of 4 pink and two yellow), in addition to the 2 blower fan motors via a TB6612FNG-based DC motor driver. These blower followers use a whole lot of energy, so this requires a big LiPo battery that sits in a backpack. The distant comprises a second Nano 33 BLE powered by a small LiPo battery in a 3D-printed enclosure. The 2 Arduino boards talk through BLE (Bluetooth Low Vitality) and the distant management’s Arduino makes use of its onboard accelerometer to reply to movement controls.