1924 Radio Police Automation robot

[robothut]

Alphadromes member Automation had been asking me about doing the 1924 Science and Invention Radio Police Automation robot since last year. I had a long list of bots too do but Brain was cranking those out as I took a winter break. So when Danial told me he had some Cad files for the robot I decided I would take a look at them. Same old problem I have had 3 times now and every time I swear I will never re work some one's CAD files again. Its pure Hell trying to re don CAD files that are not designed to be 3d printed. Much faster to just start over with the proper 3d printing mind set of design. I also wanted to play around with the 3d printer filament POLYVINYL BUTYUAL or Polysmooth. Most of you know that since FDM printing "starting back in the 1980's" there has been only two ways to make smooth print if you worked in PLA plastic, The oldest way sand and fill and sand and paint. That old method works every time if you are will to put the work into it and the time. Then there are coating made by several companys that you brush or spray on and they self level and give you a smooth finnish, some require sanding. But last year Polymaker said they had a new 3d printer filament that could be vapor smoother with alcohol and finnaly the stuff was for sale to general public. So I got some to play with, with the help of Ozzy. So the blue Radio Police robot you see is glossy to beat the band and looks like it has been clear coated or painted but it has not. The only thing Polysmooth can not fix is printing errors sometimes called echo's or ringing that is normally caused by the slicer or the firm ware in the printer. A example would be a design that has lots of rivets and after the rivet is printed there is a ghost line tracing that goes on. Well things like that if they are minor do not show up with PLA prints. The layer lines help hide it and the flat surface helps as well. Take away the layer lines and add a glossy surface and that sort of thing shows up to a degree. If you do not want the super high gloss finnish you can always spray the part with a MATT finnish.

I also wanted to play with TPU flexable filament. So this was a good time since this robot has spinning ball buster hands. The filament prints easly and is unbreakable, you bend it all you want.

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Here is a youtube video of the first 3 robots in action. The gray PLA was the prototype, the red one was for Danial and the blue polysmooth is mine. The robot are radio controlled with walking and lit eyes and spinning ball buster hands and siren warning sound. 

 

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Here you can see the TPU flexable spinng hand part printed in black the painted later. A center hub cap was also added later. The small motors can be seen as well.

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So as I redesigned the project I started at the feet and worked my way up. I put in dual wheel ratchets and used a motor gear box that will not interfere with the radio control electronics.

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group shot.

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silver PLA prototype.

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Red painted for Danial.

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My boy in Blue. No paint and no sanding just print and smooth with Alcohol.

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The best part of the article.

[roboz]

Wow beautiful work John ! The polysmooth looks great & I'd be curious what matt paint on polysmooth would look like

 

That siren noise is cool , sounds like a WW2 air raid siren , goes perfect with the ERA of the robot 

 

 I'm partial to all the early 1900's mechanical men designs. Pity none were made into casy iron or tin toys

 

but I guess Robots were always on the more evil side early on & not so kid friendly at least in pulp & movies

 

Thanks to you & Brian for tackling these 

[Brian..]

I'm delighted to see the 3D printing of these science fiction beauties. This is where the technology excels - bringing to life these concepts, pulp art, prototypes and sci-fi fantasies.

 

As usual you incorporate so many features that you blow away the competition. Give us a chance, John!

 

The Polysmooth gives an interesting result. It reminds me of those Hong Kong plastics with the mirror finish.  It certainly gets closer to the gloss on toy robots and the red version looks good. The dual ratchets are an interesting addition: you mentioned them before and you execute them so darned well.

 

Thanks again for driving this branch of the hobby with your technical innovations and your mastery of mechanisms. Ah, well. Back to the drawing board.

[Fineas J. Whoopie]

Awesome work John. To me the ability to easily make a glossy smooth finish on a 3-d printed piece is a huge step forward. For all I know this has been around for a while but its new to me. I like the smooth surface soooo much more than the basic printed surface.

[Automaton]

Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!

 

So many versions of recreating this robot to get to this stage from the magazine to a watercolor painting to different 3D designs of it and I could not be happier with how it turned out. 

 

 

 

[robothut]

Printing with the Polysmooth takes some learning as it is different from PLA. Also I found that if print thin wall parts and over treat them with alcohol they turn in to a interesting flexable type plastic sort of like a plastic water or bottle of pop. I still use PLA for parts that need to be stiff, also PLA costs a lot less. The special polishing machine they sell is not needed and good thing since mine does not work any more. All you need is a spray bottle and a container to sit the part in to cure for a bit. You can get fancy and use a aroma misting unit off ebay for $8 bucks and make lots of alcohol mist into a dollar store tub if you want a DIY polyshure unit. I also built a jumbo mist polishure for big parts with a fish tank and a modified fog machine.

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The old method of coating PLA 3d printed  parts with a epoxy works also but is kind of messy . You play around with the concept dirt cheep. just buy some epoxie and thin it down with alcohol, brush it on and let it level out and cure. I used 5 minuet epoxy for a test on a scrap PLA part left over from last years build. I coated just the hand part of this printed Mr Servo arm, then sprayed it with red paint so you could see what the epoxie coated part looked like compared to just painted PLA printed at 0.2mm and non painted.