More things!

A lot of tidying up un-finished jobs just lately.

One of the most annoying jobs has been the motors for both the feet and the dome.

The shaft on the motors is a D shape.  The wheel hub is a cylinder, so not D shaped.  There idea is (as you have seen in other photos) that there is a 2 grub screws that screw through the hub and on to the flat side of the D shape of the motor shaft.

But a lot of force is going through a small amount of contact on the pins.  This can cause them to start to slip and strip the shaft.

Another problem with the design is that it will only stop it turning on 1 axis, so it's fairly free to slide up the shaft and the wheel fall off.  Now that would be worth catching on video and making £250 on you've been framed!


So, to counter this I have tried to drill into the shaft a 3mm pocket, so there is resistance in all directions once the grub screw is sitting in the pocket.

As you can see, I lined up the hub so I could drill the right spot on the shaft.

I've not been able to test drive it since this tweak, but man handling it it's been holding up well :)

I've also recently solved what I'm going to do for the feet hoses :)

This is a test piece.  I was pointed in the direction of some IDE cables on eBay. They have a plastic coating over some copper braided hose,  with cables through it.

So I cut off one end, pulled the cables out, split the plastic tube and rolled it to fit inside the braided stuff.  It's worked very well!  It's 2mm thinner than the club spec stuff, but I'll be making my own hose fittings so this shouldn't cause any issue :)  The picture above is a test piece, the second I've done is much neater.  I'll post a short "How to" at a later date.  If you want to stock up before then in anticipation, here's the cable I would recommend 

I've also been helping out Brad with his actuator pins to make his 2-3-2 system more stable.  Check out his YouTube channel, well worth subscribing to.  While you're over the, you might as well subscribe to me too ;)

But while I was on the lathe, I couldn't resist having a stab at the shoulder buttons.

I've only had the time to make the one, and it still needs two holes drilling in it.

I opened up the back of it and tapped it to take an M4 bolt.  This way I can replace the nut on the horseshoe, using the button to hold it to the leg instead :)  Detail mounting and droid assembly built into one!

I've also ordered some more styrene which should be with me today!  I've got plenty of 3mm to redo my legs and a couple of other bits, and a large piece of 1mm to finish the back skin.

While I wait for that, I've just received some nice resin bits from Don Jarr!

Looking forward to getting this fitted :) Though they will most likely transfer over to the new set of legs soon anyway :)