Sparkling Mike - Toughest repair ever?

[Martian Gil]

Lengthy post ahead,  

 

I know many on here have repaired an incredible amount of robots - many more than me.  Id love to hear some of the horror stories - even if from just one robot.

 

I have tackled some oddballs & have several dozen other nice little stories.  

 

Tonight was my toughest by far.  By far.

More to follow.

 

What were your most difficult repairs you ran into?   Please feel free to share and add pics.

 

After dinner, I opened the mail to get my newest little fellow.  Sparkling Mike, Sankei.

 

I'd been looking, and found what I thought would be a perfect fit...

 

- body was in nice shape & complete.

- was non functioning.  Key turned, clicked - nothing happened.   I figured broken spring.

- right foot was backwards...?   Wait what?  Oh well.  Made a deal for the clunker and waited.

 

After dinner seemed good.

 

So, I think this will be straight forward....  a simple Sparkling Mike.  

ha.  

I got him apart well enough - but then, realization kicked in... I don't think Sankei ever really intended on Mike needing an overhaul.

 

Fixed key.  Makes for separating clockwork from legs a bit tricky...

 

So, I thought about it for awhile and turned my attention to his odd foot...

With a pin walker, the foot can be loosened , but not removed or rotated  without twisting the metal strip that connects the pins to the clockwork...

 

Hmmm... reassemble let him be.  It was an option, but I got him to make him function.   I'd have a go.

 

I was able to completely disassemble Mike.  Legs off & pins out.  If nothing else, he'd have two proper feet.

 

So, I have his clockwork out - and again I notice signs that say "do not open"..

The mainspring gear is crimped to the shaft.  The leg cams are crimped outside the box...  so, it's all one awkward jumble of parts.

 

I push on - what the heck I bought him not working - at the end would he work less?

 

I removed the mainspring while thinking about how to temper the "new" end with all of the other extraneous bits flapping about.

 

I devised a little sheet metal base for me to bring some fire to bear on the spring end -  while clamping out and protecting the rest of the bits, case, cams, etc.

 

I was able to temper and get the proper bend on the spring end.  That was good to go.  Now just to spend 45 hand cramping minutes holing the case, the spring, et al - while trying to get four fussy gears to set well - and a sparking lever too.  Weee!

 

Eventually, success!

  

Wait-  I have to get those legs on, while threading the pinwalkers and re-attaching them...  very tough.  No joke.

And for those aware about the leg design of a Sparkling Mike - I'm upfront.  

There were some... uh, let's  say non-typical methods used.   All original parts are back in him.  

 

But again - the plan worked out.

I got him knowing it would be be a job.

No way was I expecting that level of difficulty, but that's the way the worm turns.  Who knows.

 

Here is a shot of him blasted apart - after the clockwork reassembly - with the offending little piece of broken spring up front for luck.

 

And here he is now all buttoned up and ready to party like it's 1956.  

 

- peace & please share some of your tales. 

 

 

[Sparkrobot]

MG you truly are a master mechanic.

Soon you will get members sending you their sick clunkers.

Get ready for a heavy workload.

[Martian Gil]

Lol, thanks for the kind works Spark.   I'm pretty sure that even i would chose for my robots to be in safer hands!  

 

I'm just having fun and learning - and sharing what I can as bump along.

These are pretty cool to bring back from the ICU.  

 

Sometime, I will have to load pics to the tips thread - not so much in the tip dept, as pics fro reference I suppose.

 

Cheers!

[Action Robot]

Great post, I always like seeing the guts of these old soldiers.

 

I can't wait to hear John Riggs' reply to this topic...sure to be epic!

[Fineas J. Whoopie]

Great work MG. My most involved repair was on my MR-45 robot. I was working on that one for a month or so. I looked for that thread but it's not here on Alphadrome anymore. And then there was the Yonezawa space Explorer.......

[Joe K.]

You just have to know where to look, Don:

 

[Maloo]

Mike is sparkling!

Well done with the repairs MG.

I had been after a Yeti for a long time and eventually won a non operating one.

He arrived and i was happy to have him as a display piece.

After a couple of weeks the usual thing happened, i picked him up and thought i would investigate the easiest  thing, the remote.

All good there, which meant i had to remove  the fur and open him up.

No simple broken wire but problems with the internals of the motor.

I managed to pick up a couple of old triple K motors from ebay and swopped out the brush assembly.

There was nothing nicer than the first signs of movement and sound of his terrible screech.

[Martian Gil]

On 3/25/2017 at 0:03 PM, Fineas J. Whoopie said:

Great work MG. My most involved repair was on my MR-45 robot. I was working on that one for a month or so. I looked for that thread but it's not here on Alphadrome anymore. And then there was the Yonezawa space Explorer.......

Thanks to Joe for finding that thread - excellent job to get through, Don!  Kudos!

And a great read - I always enjoy reading anything involving the late, great, H.I. Gosses.  

[Martian Gil]

Maloo, you know I love that Yeti - from his freaky head to the nicely litho'd toes!

Great work!  Isn't that screech box annoying though?  

[Martian Gil]

On 3/25/2017 at 4:47 AM, Sparkrobot said:

MG you truly are a master mechanic.

Soon you will get members sending you their sick clunkers.

Get ready for a heavy workload.

By the way, your joke about folks sending me repair jobs, really split one of my Zoomers up, though he he kept a straight face... *groan*...

[Eagle]

Oh yeah my toughest repair was not a robot or toy...It was a damn Mr Peanut parade costume Phil brought to me. I had to use Three 2 ton jacks to move it's body back into position.

Phil and I in the back yard with bondo and a DA carving out the body parts.  It wasn't fun. Now the Mr Peanut window tapper was fun !!

[Martian Gil]

3 hours ago, Eagle said:

Oh yeah my toughest repair was not a robot or toy...It was a damn Mr Peanut parade costume Phil brought to me. I had to use Three 2 ton jacks to move it's body back into position.

Phil and I in the back yard with bondo and a DA carving out the body parts.  It wasn't fun. Now the Mr Peanut window tapper was fun !!

 

lol, I can only imagine how much fun that was!   did any photos make it out of that day?

[Tinplate6]

Well, to my credit I have only repaired two robots; a walking Robocon, and a Blink-A-Gear, but the one covered in this old post, tells the whole story...

 

 

[kennetzel]

I too have only repaired two robots...one was actually a rebuild. I did my old Attacking Martian a while ago, replaced the wires. However I couldn't figure out how to wire up the lights in the guns. So now they stay on all the time, which isn't bad, they look cool through the green lenses.

 

The rebuild was a Remco Lost in Space robot. Very easy to repair, the mechanism is very simple. But to make my all blue one I had to disconnect all the wiring, remove the battery contacts and remove the treads from the legs. Once the tread section is rebuilt and the wiring is reattached, all you have to do is feed the light through the legs and screw the contacts in place once the torso is ready to put on. But the hardest of the two was definitely the Attacking Martian.

[Fineas J. Whoopie]

Thanks for finding that old post Joe. Was it in Tips and Tricks? I did a search for MR-45 in robot talk and couldn't find it.

 

MG - glad you liked the thread. I took a quick look at it but don't have the time to re read it. Hell - I don't have to read it, I lived it! :-)

 

And yes it is nice to see Henk popping up from the past.