Let's face it... There are only three proven ways to power the Flux Capacitor in a DeLorean time machine. Plutonium, a bolt of lightning, or Mr. Fusion. For our classic Back to the Future build, we decided to equip the vehicle with a plutonium chamber.

While I modeled the shape using xDesign, I thought about how we'd fabricate it.

3D Printing was an obvious choice, so I made design decisions that would eliminate support material. I also chose to break the model into two main pieces to prepare for a few surprises in the larger build.

I also modeled the chamber cap and printed it in yellow.

We weren't sure if we'd go with white or yellow for the trapezoid-shaped pieces, so instead of including them in the 3 print, we laser cut them out of acrylic. 

We modeled one piece and then extracted a DXF of its face to send to the laser cutter.

It felt great to see it all assembled, but I couldn't get myself to stop there, so I designed a miniature plutonium capsule to go with the chamber.

I laser cut the upper, lower, and rear pieces out of clear acrylic and then inserted a piece of clear mylar into the slots I created along the front to create the clear, curved surface. I made the plutonium vial out of a red boba tea straw! I just cut it to length, and then glued a short piece of coiled up mylar into the top to mimic the empty part of the vial. I also glued in a precisely cut red acrylic cap for the bottom of the vial. As a final touch, I cut out a yellow vinyl sticker to apply to the straw creating the final illusion of a hazardous plutonium capsule. 

These are going to be great additions to our larger DeLorean build.

Check out this short video to see how the project came together: https://youtube.com/shorts/-qGvjrCM0cQ?feature=share 

** Yes, I know this is only half of a plutonium chamber... we don't need a full chamber for what we're making :)
OurNextMake