Merry Christmas

Most people will probably come here from Reddit. Merry Christmas.

New foot

Finally, the middle shell gets to go somewhere other than my shelf.

I built this today because the A&A was drooping so much, it was affecting the forward/reverse transition when moving around... Also, the casters I put on it extended beyond the base plate, preventing the foot shell from going on.


Tomorrow, I'll attempt the side foot shells and the battery boxes if I feel like making a big, stinky mess.

No title today.

A&A middle leg too wide for Crash skirt

I ended up shaving about 1/4" off the sides of this box but that was probably a mistake... The little bit is screwed on from the outside (left) and down to add a little support.

 That was the only way to get the leg to fit through the skirt.

 I added some extra wood floor boards to the sides at the top to make up for the room between the verticle A*A frame supports to the box.

Then I switched from the A&A frame to the Com8. I ended up shortening the entire box by taking it apart, shortening the long sides with the miter saw, and drilling new guide holes for the screws.

Post-DragonCon

Wow it's really been a while this time.

Pretty much done.
I switched to a Com8 Budget frame.

DragonCon was awesome. R2 is a babe magnet. If I had photoshop and skills, I would put a little pimp hat on him.

This was my "work area" I used in the hotel room... Good thing the arm of the chair and the little table were the same height. I had no other way to get the legs on!

All that remains now is the feet... The center foot gets NO cover right now because there is just no room for the top, thick styrene.... The other foot shells go on, because I removed the top panel, similar to another builder named Trooper_Trent on the forum a while back.

Overdue update

The com8-budget frame will be here this week!


My left arm could barely move over the weekend, so Monday was a productive day...

Incredibly, this vent went together this close without comparing it to the outer piece. Less than 1mm tolerance on any side.

I built the side vents and coin returns... All in one shot. Yay. This means all that's left is the other center vent for the main body (besides painting) and the side lower "kick" plates or whatever they are called.

I've nearly used a full thingy of this stuff. 

That's a metric thingy, not imperial.

Up and around again.

Lowered paint standards, so the legs are back on. Still having foot twist/tilt issue. Otherwise things are going ok. Slip ring is installed and powering the reeves from the main battery via the pololu regulator.

What the hell....

I have no idea how this happened. I was just about finished with white paint in the legs. Covering the bondo sealing I painted up a bit covering bad areas and then this happened.

Painting

Painting this thing is a nightmare. These guys added to it.

Sucks.

This is what they did with my new radar eye. It was primed and sanded smooth as glass when I took it to them.

The top now feels like 400-600 grit sandpaper. A little difficult to see, but it's a stark contrast to the front, in the areas that are well done.

There are several "bubbles" or "bumps" on the face. They're hard to see in this picture:

What he said about this part was priceless.. "Well, that's probably from stuff blowing around. It's so small, the thing moves around when we hit it with the high-psi of the paint gun"

As for the legs:

I took it to them and put the ankle brackets down in front of the guy who took my order.

I don't have many good pictures of it, but I told them when I took it in... I'm having problems with the styrene joint areas. Bondo is giving me trouble, and sanding it all out is not working.. Can you help me out? Sure they say, for $100, we'll make it look smooth as glass.

When I got it back, it had a run or two, the bondo that I HAD put on and thought I'd sanded out was still clear as day... They didn't even touch it. Just painted right over it.

The Booster cover resin pieces were even worse. Little holes all over after priming? 

No problem. Just paint anyway.

SAY HELLO TO MY LEETLE FRIEND!

Wires and stuffs.

Red switch powers up radio and feet speed controller.

Green will be Pittman motor for dome motor.

Blue will be electronics IN the dome. (Teeces) (Pololu power supply on right)

I forget what orange is. I just wanted all four colors!

I'm not sure about fuses. I have been reading up on the forums and have seen that both of my speed controllers are regenerative... So they're supposed to charge the batteries when they spin. But apparently fuses cause problems with that... Needs more research.

Replaced a whole bunch of warped styrene over the last day or two:

Still had a lot of gap and leveling issues. 

Enough is enough:

Can't wait to see the legs Monday...

Also dropped off the new radar eye and booster covers...

So, it's taken a while, but I've gone from this:

To this, and this:

Pretty happy with the painting today. There seems to be something wrong with the cans of rustoleum satin white paint I'm buying.   So after a few hours, I'll probably lightly sand a bit for one more coat before the clear coating goes on tomorrow.   They like to make air bubbles a LOT more than the duplicolor. I realize it's thicker...

Having some problems though.
The below areas are painted over lightly after bondo and prime...
The wrinkling of the styrene just wouldn't get covered. The root cause was the styrene reacting badly to the Testor's model cement I used to stick it on. Super glue is a better choice... No warping.
So, I don't really know what to do.

Ow, dammit.

Well at least the skins are together.

(minus the door at the moment)
Something caused a bit of a delay.

Well it's been A week.
Tore him back down for skins and leg painting.
Snaps on an A&A frame... Not great.
The top ones under the upper ring are a lost cause. No room there for mounting the receivers. At all.
The ones for under the shoulder area are a little better, but not much. There was just enough room for ONE screw. So I got some 1.25" 4-40's and screwed them down as far as I can. I might try to add one or two at the sides since I have extras, but we'll see.
The lower snap receivers aren't a problem at all. The plastic frame doesn't do much for receiving the stock screws, but again, the 1.25" ones go down through it no problem with plenty of room for the nuts.  It's not as pretty as a metal frame with its own taps but the skins do stay on really well even without the upper snaps engaged.  If it starts slipping or anything, I can live with screws going in from the outside since they'll be covered by the top of the shoulder anyway.

Not happy with the paint so far.
The middle leg has had problems. Mostly related to using the wrong glue to stick on the styrene covers.
I used testor's model cement... Apparently this warps the styrene to the point that bondo can't smooth out enough of that surface, so it makes a heck of a mess.
I re-cut some new styrene covers and stuck them on with super glue. They seem to be better. Today will tell that story.

The resin leg pieces seemed to take the  paint and primer pretty well.

I did get the utility arms in the mail and they are drying right now.

Good and bad.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtaDH4LPxf0

This is the most complete he's ever been.

Unfortunately, you can see around 35-42 seconds in, the third wheel is wobbling. A lot. It's a problem I'm not sure how to solve with the A&A foot... It MAY be related to the way it is mounted, but that part doesn't seem to move.
The ankle area where it  joins together seems to be the  problem, but a nut will not fit in the side "channel" that gets covered, so there isn't one in there. Just the bolt. It's surrounded on one side, and then stopped at the other, so it's not going to come out...
It seems the problem is just related to having so much weight on such a narrow area with the two wheels lined up like that.
The problem is, the casters I've been able to find so far are all too small or won't fit under the plate without knocking into each other. I had two small 1.5" wheels under there yesterday, but they would not swivel. It seemed to be related to the weight, but I'm not sure.

What a day...

This ended up being what will probably be the cleanest styrene cut I make...

Those bolts are gone now. Replaced with countersunk screws.

Skirt arrived! Purty!

This is where things get ugly. 

No fit.

No fit (leg "box" to the frame....

If you look carefully above, You'll see the foot "box"/assembly is actually in place inside the middle supports of the A&A frame. You'll also see the sides have actually been trimmed about halfway up, and halfway across. (more on that below.)  It's ugly, but with the added spacers (lighter wood) on the sides, this thing is sitting in there with a friction fit while I take a picture of it.

Unfortunately that weakens the box's integrity, so I added a support in each corner and it feels very very sturdy now. Screwed from the top and from the left.
 

If you look toward the bottom left you see where it becomes thinner so that the box can fit partly through the skirt.  The four blocks of wood appear to line up with the holes around the boards sticking out at the bottom of the A&A frame. Gotta wait for the JB Weld to set, and we'll see how that goes tomorrow.

Also done today:

Batteries, bought. Chargers, bought. Ended up getting 2 7AH 12V batteries like you'd find in a UPS or in this case, a deer feeder!

Also got a rechargeable 6V lantern-type battery. I haven't seen one of these before, but it should handle the RC receiver and the dome lighting.

Gotta keep up with The Flash!
I'm doing 3 things at once... I have my scooter motors mounted in the A&A shells. I just got the speed controller.  I could have it mobile by Saturday!
Also having a hell of a time with the styrene battery boxes. The foot shells aren't quite so bad. They're my first ever bout with styrene and the solvent glue... I'm moderately satisfied. Not like they wouldn't have needed bond anyway.

The wheel came with some kind of brake hub or whatever you'd call it. A few whacks on each of the four little pegs holding it on, and that problem was over. I about had a fit at first thinking I would have to dremel it off or return them.

Now I'm scrounging for batteries.

The foot shells... Not really sure how they're going to go on. The bolts you see have now been replaced by countersunk screws, but the top is still never going to let the 3-layer "door" go on the way it is.

I hate the battery boxes. I might have to go another route entirely... Maybe the pvc pipe method.

Don't kid yourself. This pair of pliers dropped into JUST the wrong area of an A&A frame took 20 minutes to get out. It weaseled its way in there the moment I let go.

Stupid, Stupid idea for a makeshift T-nut. 

The real thing is in there now and I am quite happy with the way it looks.

I seem to see this view quite a lot lately.

Head 95% done.

It's been like this for a while, but I realized I haven't posted pictures yet. Nice and smoooooth rotation on the rockler. Almost like I knew what I was doing.

New frame and legs and feet came the other day. The whole basement smells like laser-burnt PVC. Pretty sure it's not good for me.