well my dome started out as a blanc 2nd gen Formisi Dome , made by Peter Formosi, and needed a big sanding jub to get all the spinning bumps out, I just took my mouse sander and started out with grid 150, and worked may way up in steps 150 / 220 to 320, as I was going for the ESB look and didn't want to have it to glossy after polishing.

the polishing is a tricky bussines, I used a polishing wheel for a drill and polishing wax, the importand thing is to keep making a criss/cross pattern so it will polish even, all in all it took me 2 days to get it shiny.

then I neede something to hold the panels when they were cut out, so I made a fiberglass inner dome, it was a little hard getting the inner dome out of the outer but after some muscle power and, pair of pliers and a table edge it came out, and cut that into 2 pieces that were glued back into the dome after the panels were cut out.

and on to the the panel cutting itself, I started with the trusty dremel and metal cutting wheels, but soon came to realise this is a time consuming and not the ideal way to do it, so after 1,5 panel I changed tactics and just made a start hole with the dremel and then continued with a small metal saw blade loose in my hand, the Aluminium is very soft and cutting is easy, just take your time and cut as straight as possible, the slower you go the better the result ( as I was in a hurry to finish for a Con my panel cutting did not turn out as great as I wanted ).

as I was waiting for Aluminium Holoprojectors but needed something to fill the holes during the Con, I mad some tomporary ones myself, they were even movable :).

I lengthed the switch wires so they could be controlled from the top dome pie panel, the switches are simple on and off switches and turn nobs for logic display speed.

and the modified Hinges came from McMaster carr #11205A11, where I added a spring and blocking pin.

On to electronics, well I'm not an experts so I used the expertiese of a friend, and he adapted two regular 8 led prints to run with superbright white leds, they both have 2 switches to regulate the speed and ammout of leds running along.

for the front and back PSI I ised a simple and cheap print from Velleman.com #MK102, I changed just 1 resistor so it also woked with bright leds, blue red front and green yellow in the back.

the mounting of the PSI's was made from houshold plumbing tubes and end caps, and added some locking pin for easy removal, the end caps are small enough to hold the print itself

due to the bright leds in al the prints I had to add 2 9V battery's to let it burn for about 7hours, and makes the dome self reliant and the dome can keep on turning around and around....and around. and the rotation is done with the 17Inch Lazy Suzan from Leevalley.com and is mounted on the wooden ring inside the dome.

the front and back Logic displayes were made with 1mm fiberoptic cable, I made from some old black 5mm ABS pieces, cut into 2 small and 1 long rectangles, and drilled with 1mm holes in the right pattern, pushed the 1mm fibers trough and melted them at the front, this helps preventing the fibers from coming loose and a added bonus is that the end become a 2,5mm lens that give the appearence of bigger lights.

the fibers are then grouped in bundles and are hold together in a small tube that fits over the white led.

for fun I grouped the back logics to spell out r2-D2 when certain leds flash