Morbius Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 Resistance is futile, I guess I'm in for one too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian.. Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I always look forward to John's amazing creations. Count me in! Metal for preference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinplate6 Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 John, just tell me when to send the money. You are my hero!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orbit Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Looks great. Count me in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nasa Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Great work as always John.......I can never let an Alphabot robot pass me up ;o) I am in for one......I like the windup version since I am lucky enough to own the remote tin Alphabot even though I was late to the dance. ;o) My suggesstion for a name RAW since it is made from raw materials and RAW = Riggatron Alphabot Windup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astrogonza Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Nice piece. Save one for me . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Palmer Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Action Robot Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 John, Have you checked online for free CAD software? There seems to be a lot out there...I am not familiar enough with CAD to make a suggestion, but here's one for starters: http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cad/ If you need a free vector art program, Inkscape is good. Cheers, Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Action Robot Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 Here's a custom skin I worked up, in case anyone wants an Alpha Thunderbot... If anyone is interested, I can shoot a high-res file to John. I didn't color the nose, as I would leave it out of the build for this variant. Cheers, Dave PS- working on a "vintage look" box design for the wind up alpha...stay tuned! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robothut Posted April 20, 2014 Author Share Posted April 20, 2014 I would love to see some box art designs. here is the mock up box for the robot. the top area is 6 inches by 7 inches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 ALF-A-BOT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robothut Posted April 20, 2014 Author Share Posted April 20, 2014 As for the robot, it will be alot more money to make it in metal, Hydro cutting or lazer cutting both cost more than I want to spend at this time. So I think I will do this build with the wood by products, plastic metal and resin.It could be after this build is done that we might do a small build in tin for those that want to spend the money. So here is Prototype number 3. What I was trying to work out this time was three things. First off the first two prototypes used the wind up guts the legs and metal feet from the lilliput, I wanted to get it down to just the wind up guts. So new mounting parts were designed and installed, then I made a master foot out of wood and then a simple silicon rubber mold of the master wood foot so I could cast resin feet. and I wanted to try a START / STOP control. I also received my order of Lilliputs and this lead to a delay and education. The first two prototypes were built from old lilliputs that had been in my junk boxes for many years, they ran great and so thats why I thought the lilliput would be a good choice for the wind up guts. But once I tested a few of the new lilliputs I found they run like crap, the run time is short and if you wind them up all the way they will jam. I then checked a few other toys that use the same wind up guts like the female Venus robot, yep they run like crap too. So I took a few of the wind up gear boxes apart. the first thing that seemed wrong was the way the spring is attached to the ratchet gear, they did a large double hoop thing that throws the spring off center and as the spring is wound up this makes the spring coil not round but a off center oblong shape that sticks out and hangs up on other gear box parts. So I decided to re attached the spring the way all other spring wound toys are done, and this helped a lot as far as run time. But I also noticed that the sparing steel used is not tempered. Normal spring wound toys use a tempered spring steel, this is so that the spring metal does not just bend and take on the shape of a coil "lose its spring if you will" I have repaired a lot of vintage spring wound toys and know that when the spring in a vintage toy brakes and has to be re connected to the ratchet gear you can not just bend the spring steel in to the required "U" shape as it will just brake in stead of bend. You have to first heat the end of the spring where you want to make the bend to remove the temper, then you can bend it. Well non of the new china toys seem to be using tempered spring steel for the wind up guts. So this means that if you wind up the spring very tightly it will basically bend the spring in to that shape to some extent and you will have lost a lot of power "run time". Also this means if you like to leave your toys in the wound up state with the control lever in the STOP mode that this will also lead to the spring taking on the shape of a wound up coil instead of wanting to un wind. So I had built a simple lift and lower lever too control the wind up motor to make winding up the toy easy, and installed it in Prototype number 3 and it worked but this was all before I had checked out why the wind up guts were not working well. So by the time I finished with the rebuild of the wind up guts and glued the robot together I had managed to mess up the ON OFF lever control. So even though this robot does have a Start Stop lever control installed it is not working in this unit. I should have tested that it was working before gluing the bot together but my mind was all wrapped up in "would the wind up guts work better or not". So my next robot will try and be robot number 1 of the actual build too see if I can make everything work right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robothut Posted April 20, 2014 Author Share Posted April 20, 2014 Here is Prototype number 3 with control lever "knob on top of head and resin feet. In the video I only wound the robot 2 or 3 turns too keep run time short for the video. http://youtu.be/WRUoFjgzBRc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robothut Posted April 20, 2014 Author Share Posted April 20, 2014 I do not think I like the red shoulder's as well as the black so production bot will have black shoulder I think. But I am open to feed back on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robothut Posted April 20, 2014 Author Share Posted April 20, 2014 Here is a picture of the wood master foot "painted red" and the simple silicon rubber mold used to cast the resin feet used on the Prototype #3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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