Meet Franko the 8 foot tall Robot

[Ranger]

11 hours ago, RoboDerby said:

Just fantastic!! What a cool neighbor. Of course when you go to meet him, wouldn’t it be cool to show off your fresh new hand made metal robot? Better get cracking’!

No chance in two weeks time!  

[Andyman]

Wonderful!

[Alle]

Nice piece, cool manufactured! 

[Ranger]

Meet the crazy Franko the Robot builders. Russell & Mike.  Russell is the bloke with dark hair. 

[Ranger]

My Friend Kevin also helps out with painting, my brother Graham does any electronic jibber jabbery

and my long suffering wife feeds the team and makes tea for us.

We also created a sentry box for him, but this is at present being reduced in size and width to house a Great War soldier Mannequin for the WORS charity.
Russell. 

[Ranger]

 

[Ranger]

Now for more body construction photos. 

[Ranger]

[Ranger]

[6Stelab9]

Fantastic job and very interesting "making of" photos. Thank you for sharing.

[Ranger]

[robert]

very cool! 

[ckalkhof]

It's so neat to see people build things like this. It's inspiring - 

[Ranger]

Yes,great skills for sure!

[Ranger]

An update from Russell. 

So a bit about the Robot, when I first started building him, I had little to work from other than a you tube video and a few images, that are of such low resolution they could only act as a guide ( a high res image could be blown up on screen against a scale to start the plans).

As usual for our Halloween event, a few things did not get finished, and the timescale kept reducing, aided by the morons next door having another vulgar extension added and blocking my rear lane where I work. 

 

Anyway,  it all sort of worked, but like any project where you are reverse engineering, and lack skills and have only simple tools, you always make mistakes, from these we learn.

 

Towards the end of the build a very rare book arrived that I had been hunting for.  When I see it listed for sale its usually silly money, but I managed to get a copy from a Charity shop at a reasonable price, downside is 6 weeks delivery.

 

The original Electro resides in the Town Museum at Mansfield Ohio, and the curator wrote a book all about the Westinghouse robots.

They came to fruition to allow the designer of probably the first modem, to show in simple terms how it worked, he patented it in 1926 !!!

 

Now that I have this book I can see a great deal more. No drawings survive, but enough images of the robot build and the robot in use allow me to see where I have gone wrong.

 

My robot is not meant to be an exact Copy, just a younger better looking sibling!

You will notice in the photos it shows a massive roller bearing. Some year's back I purchased the contents of a small old fashioned garage so as to obtain a few parts for my ancient Morris. Cheaper and easier than trying to buy one or two items , as several local skinflints had tried to do. I have since sorted around 2 tonnes of parts, scrapped about half of them for being worn out or incomplete and retained the rest. Whatever  I don't need I will sell, in amongst it I found a huge bearing. My helper Mike, wanted to go off and research bearings, and design a better system for the neck, and being a talented and skilled artist it would have been perfect, but like most artistic folk he has no concept of time or deadlines, to be honest nor do I , but that's just because I am thick.

Well it all worked, but now the event is over, I can look at the images and see where to improve things.

Well that bearing for starters, it weighs 7.2 Kilos!!, it has now been removed from the neck, and is going to be part of another project that requires something heavy, but not easy to steal ( its going to be turned into a commemorative artwork).

 

When  I looked at the images in the book, I noticed a circular plate level with the top of the body, more or less like a turntable on a gramophone ( Westinghouse probably made those as well), so idly perusing the internet I typed in turntable bearing, and came up with a Lazy Susan, so I ordered the bearing assembly. You will see it on Frankos head, it weights less than a packet of good cigars, so I plan to make a plywood disc to mount on it, then cut a hole in the body to fit, and install a pair of pivot bearings to allow the turntable to tilt. I will obtain a small motor with worm drive and limit switches for that.

I can then improve the fixings to allow me to remove the head and refit it with ease (especially now its 7.2Ks lighter).

Some quick connectors will allow the power to be joined up easily, and the ability to tilt his head down as well as left to right, wil be a nice effect.

In the front of the torso, I had fitted a computer monitor, but that is coming out, and also the computer speakers sited above it, to clear the turntable. I have purchased some black metal grille, and will fix that inside the cut out, then I will install a couple of fake valves, re site the camera to look through it, and the speakers either side.

 

Next job is the  arms, I purchased two windscreen wiper motors complete with drive assemblies ( Valeo) as fitted so most small Vauxhalls, Renaults, Citroens etc, these comprise a 12 volt motor with a worm gear, and then a set of link arms, and splines to drive the wiper arms. Now one of the benefits of the EU, is that the vast majority of cars are designed and built in LHD format, and simply converted to RHD with a change of dash, and extension linkages. The wiper mechanism is likewise dual handed, so when I get around to installing them I can transpose the drive and links to make it symmetrical.

I will remove the wiper drives, and just retain one pushrod, this will be coupled to a circular metal coupling on the 8mm arm shaft

the shafts have two caged ball bearings each, one outside one inside, so they should last a while.

I also noticed that, although the robot was meant to be 8 feet 4 inches, he was considerably more, so by changing the mounting of the head, I can lose three inches, and I plan to shorten the lower legs a little, hopefully he will end up 8 feet tall, as being a moron I forgot to measure the height of the ceilings in this house, that means in bad weather, he can stand in the hall behind the front door and frighten people.

 

The arms also seem to have turned out a little too long, but again, they can easily be dismantled and shortened, its much easier once you have the complete structure to work from, it will also give him a nice patina as the paint is touched in.

At present the elbows are not powered, nor are the fingers, I plan to consult my nephew who is a skilled engineer (but a rubbish puncture mender on motor bikes !!) for some practical ideas, with regard to bearings and pivots and drive systems and limit switches.

On the original robot he could count, however this was achieved by running Bowden cables  (bicycle brake cables) from each finger

to a drum inside the torso, the drum would then rotate in segments, each segment pulling another finger in, given the advances in technology, I might be able to insert small pistons or actuators, either in the hand or in the forearm, as I left plenty of room.

Also making him walk is a future move, but for this I will need to change the framework from the legs, into a steel or alloy structure with pivots and motors, again I have left room for this

My Nephew showed me some simple software that can make the motors that drive the head track a moving object such a as a human, so I will investigate this as well.

My Brother who works in IT or something is going to provide me with a blackberry, with multiple ports to remotely operate the robot, and also to allow it speech recognition, that way he can chat for himself, and possibly link to the various motors and servos.

An old laptop inside will drive the audio path and the on board camera, this can then be controlled via  a mobile phone, useful if he is in a hall, and some idiot decides to mess about with him.

We also plan to create a replica display panel like the original with a large clock face to show the time of the next exhibition, this way he can sit quite and come alive on the dot, and gain the element of surprise, as most people will presume he is just a static exhibit.

I am trying to catch up on my work at the moment, and to decorate my own house, plus get started on my classic car, so Frank will probably wait until the weather is warmer and I can work outside, he is in my office at the moments.

His legs and feet are in the workshop, and his arms and hands are in the spare bedroom

well thats all folks.

I hope to get on with it soon, the plan being to do a little bit at a time, as and when I can fit it in.