3D Print an Ultrasonic Ruler Shaped Like a Dune Inspired Gun

Tech company Adafruit Industries had another great #3DThursday project for an ultra sonic ruler and distance sensor in a 3D printed enclosure stylized to look like Beast Rabban’s Harkonnen Lost Pistol from the classic Dune film.

If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry most people don’t. It’s a weapon replica made for the 1984 David Lynch adaptation of Dune, which is not an especially good movie but still kind of awesome at the same time. I mean, Sting was in it wearing a hilarious metal thong – I’ll spare you a picture of that – Kyle MacLachlan looks like a Jonas Brother and captain Picard looks exactly the same as he does now. Like, exactly the same.

The gun itself was never actually seen in full on film, only holstered, but movie prop collectors wanted one, so someone gave them one. Adafruits Noe Ruiz decided to build one of his own, and added some great functionality to it.

The distance sensor internals are pretty simple to assemble, but if you’re like me and allergic to wiring electronics – it’s a terrible allergy, I break out in hives and everything – then you can just build your self the sweet sci fi gun part of the project.

The design is in eight parts and is completely open source and available on Thingiverse. Ruiz says that it should take about 6 hours to print on a typical 3D printer using PLA. The parts have all been optimized to 3D print with no support material, so there should be minimal cleaning required.

Take a look at Adafruits video overview of the project here:

Once you’ve printed your parts and assembled them you can pretty much do whatever you want to customize and finish the gun of course. Ruiz did some light sanding to smooth out the striation and give it a worn, well-used look and a coat of silver paint to finish it off.

You can find the complete Ultrasonic Ruler Project on Adafruit’s website, and you can download the model for the enclosure on Thingiverse.