Neon

Neon arrived in one piece from Dennis !

Experiments with LED's

I'm trying to come up with a way that I don't need to use a resistor attached to every LED like a lot of people use. The internet has some plans how to wire them with LM317 voltage regulators and one resistor.

If I can get this design to work, I can use my 12 channel light pattern generator to hang 36 or 48 lights off the controller with 12 resistors/lm317's next to the controller. It might give me more room in the brain but I'm just speculating at this point. Besides, I just fried a few LED's and the LM317 so I'll order more from Allied electronics and do more lighting experiments next week.

The radio shack electronics learning center has been helpful.

Aliens, space ships and models

It was a busy weekend so I didn't have as much time to work on the robot. Today my wife and I stopped over Brad's for about an hour so she could see the cool stuff Brad created. There's too many cool things to list. I particularly like the C3PO robot chest and head he had. Aliens, space ships, costumes, models, combined with many interesting b9 experiments abound at his place.

What a great place to take the wife on our Anniversary !

I also made 2 extra (wrong sized) knees which would bring my robot up to the correct height but a 6 kneed B9 won't be correct so I'll make 10 more knees the right way during the long 4th of July weekend coming up.

Afterwards, we went out on our son's boat and did some fishing for our anniversary.

Ordering more parts

I ordered a few more parts today. I ordered the neon from Dennis and a bubble and chest backing plate from Fred Barton. I also ordered acrylic rods so I can make my vents and collar. I was going to purchase a collar but as this is getting expensive, I need to build as much as I can from scratch.

Torso arrives

The B9 Torso and donut arrived today from Mike Joyce. It's in excellent shape and even better than I had hoped. It was a bargain for all the extra prep work and the parts that were included. Looking forward to finishing the tread, legs and waist sections to do my first stack.

Another B9 builder

Today I met with Brad at lunch and was able to see his B9 work in progress. Brad is a super creative guy and one of those guys who can build anything and make it look easy. He plans to mechanize every aspect of the robot and control it entirely with a remote control.

I learned a lot in the hour I spent with him and appreciate all the tips. Brad bought most of his parts from someone who had to abandon their B9 project and he got a pretty good deal on a lot of parts.

His torso section looks pretty rough though and he thinks it's one of the original castings. He'll be able to get it into shape though

Making knees the wrong size

This weekend was spent cutting out parts of the waist and knees sections. It was a good learning weekend where I was able to get comfortable with using the rotozip, table saw, scroll saw, and the router. After cutting out the knees and routing the 45 degree angle, I realized I used the wrong size wood. The plans called for 1" so I bought 1" pine. After doing an ok job on the knees I realized that the 1" pine is only 3/4" so using my knees would shorten the robot by more than an inch and it probably won't look right. So I'm going to just chalk this up as a lesson and remake the knees using 2 pieces of 1/2" mdf laminated.

I also contacted Brad Carpenter who is another B9 builders club member. He lives just a few miles from where I work so I'm stopping by his house on my lunch hour next week. I'm looking forward to seeing a partially built robot as I only have a few pieces of wood cut out at this stage.

Compressor repairs

Well, after a lot of work, we were able to retap the compressor and get it working again. It's one of those tools that is really nice to have when doing woodworking. I can blow the dust off the shelves in my garage and even use it to clean the dust off me after cutting a lot of wood.

Ordering the Torso

I ordered the Torso/donut combo from Mike Joyce today. I also ordered a template, torso hook kit and chest lights from Dennis Wilbur. I'll probably order a collar this week also.

This weekend I plan on finishing the tread box and start on the legs and knee sections. My compressor died this week and I've been trying to fix it. It's handy to have when blowing dust off the work areas in my garage. I need a 1/2" (approx) tap with #18 threads which is not easy to find.

Cutting the tread section

Today I cut the tread sections out using the templates. Each cut got progressively better as I refined my technique. My dad came over and brought his new sander ... another sears closeout for $15.00. The sander has 8 holes and a dust collector. I couldn't believe how great it worked. After clamping the wood together, we used the sander to make all pieces uniform. After doing that, we read the directions on the plans and stacked the 8 pieces together in the correct order with finished sides facing the correct direction. After doing that, we needed to re-sand the group as they once again didn't match. The next step was to drill out the axle holes. We took our time and made sure the holes were straight and true.

I checked at Lowes and Home Depot but they didn't have the unslit armstrong armaflex 3/4 pipe. My neighbor came over today and since he works at an air conditioning supply and he said he could get me some of that armaflex.

New saws. Time to organize the garage

Time to get this project rolling.

The garage door was fixed today and now I can set up my saws and start practicing my woodworking skills. I found a closeout tablesaw at Sears for only $58.00. It attached to my portable bench perfect.

I also picked up a pretty good scroll saw from Lowes. It also attached to the portable bench but the problem with that is everytime I want to switch from one saw to the other, It's a bit of work to bolt the saws to the bench. So I built an extension to my workbench that would accomodate the scroll saw. The extension can be removed easily so we can get the cars back in the garage.

Today was more of a get my workspace organized day with some experimenting with cutting wood with the saws. Both saws work great.

Bargain B9 parts for sale - too late

I viewed the yahoo B9 builders group message forum this morning and was surprised to find a member advertising a large amount of parts for sale at a reasonable cost. Just what I needed. I sent an email to the person first thing but haven't heard anything so he probaby sold it already. Plus I saw another message on the forum aluding to the fact that they were already sold.

I need to get the garage door fixed this weekend. It would have been a good weekend to cut wood in the garage. A tropical storm is headed this way so it will probably rain all weekend. It's starting even earlier this year.

The plans arrive

The plans from Bermuda Triangle engineering (Mark Thompson) came today. I laid them on the floor and spent about an hour pondering how I was going to transfer them to wood without messing things up. In some of the templates, 6-10 cuts were on one sheet ... kind of sharing.

I called Kinkos to see if I could get a few copies of the more complicated templates but at $4.50 apiece, I figured I would just be careful. The templates were a little wrinkled so I laid them in between the wood I purchased and laid it on the workbench. Hopefully that will straighten them out a bit.

Our garage door is still broken and the service guy was a no-show so there will probably be no cutting of wood in the garage for a few days. My wife talked with the guy on the phone and had a bad feeling about him so we're going to shop for another garage door company. I'm Still shopping for a bandsaw and will probably get it at Lowes.

The first cut

Today I purchased MDF sheets and some plywood. Enough for the treadbox and legs. When I got home, I had a little bit of time so I pulled out the rotozip and started cutting on some scrap pieces of lumber and plywood.

I have to say the rotozip was harder to use than expected. Without a guide, it's going to be difficult to make smooth cuts. I may need to get a sabre saw or band saw. When my younger son got home from work, I had just cut out a small piece of wood from the plywood using the rotozip. I held it up and said it was the beginning of my robot, what did he think. He just shook his head and went on in the house.

Ordering Plans

Now I have a plan and the green light from the wife. Time to send for Mark's plans. Today I contacted Mark Thompson and paid for the plans with PayPal. The more I look at his method of building the lower half of the robot, the more confident I am that I can build a B9.

I read a B9 article somewhere that mentioned using a rotozip to cut some of the pieces. So off I went to Lowes to purchase a rotozip with jig-saw attachment. Buying tools is always a good investment. Today I also cleaned up around my workbench area to prepare for this project. I don't have a lot of room in the garage so I'll do all the messy work out here and use my green screen video studio (in my house) to double as a B9 workshop.

I asked my Dad if he wanted to work with me on the project and he said he would. Good father son project. I also mentioned it to my son who can build and fix anything but he's so busy there's no way he would have time to spend on this project. His reply to me was .... Dad, why don't you just take up fishing again?

Second thoughts?

The first thing I did was join the B9 builders club run by Mike Joyce. There's a wealth of knowledge on that site regarding the B9 robot. After I joined, I read through all the member sites and scrapbooks and began to get a little nervous.

The project looks a lot harder than I anticipated. It's definately over my head in many areas. Just when I was beginning to retreat from my committment, I ran across Mark Thompson's website with his plans on building the bottom robot from the waist down using ordinary building materials. This certainly looked like a project that I could accomplish.

So I told myself that If I could follow Mark's plans and build the robot from the waist down then I would spend a few dollars to buy the upper torso and related head parts. The only expense would be for building materials and a few woodworking tools that I needed.

The madness begins

The urge to build the famous Lost in space robot started churning away in my mind about 6 months ago after meeting someone who built an R2D2 and B9 robot. The first few times I mentioned to the wife that I thought that would be a cool project, she completely objected and said absolutely not because I had too many unfinished projects as it was.

After spending a few weeks on the Appalachian trail, I decided that I needed to try something new. Building a robot seemed like just the right project to work with my hands. I’ve been in “Lost in Space” mode for the past several months playing with video of me and lost in space objects using my green screen.

I’m not a very mechanical person but can usually klutz through a project and eventually finish it. I once restored a 1965 mustang convertible which was the project from hell. But I finished it and it looked and ran great when it was finished.

To make a long story short, I finally found the wife in a weak moment and got her blessing and green light on the robot project. I’m a lucky guy !