Racing against the clock. Two electrical meltdowns.

Trying to get the robot in shape for the block party was the focus today. I have a bad cold so I didn't go to work today but did get an insane amount of projects completed on my robot today.

First off, I completely redid my entire sound system. My little sound cube which I loved is yesterday's flash. Today I made my robot interactive where people can talk with the robot. I installed a closed circuit wireless TV system (next to the robot) and a wireless sound system attached to my PC so I could sit at my desk and interact with people through the robot. The people (well at least the kids) will think they're actually talking with the robot. And I'll sit in my office with my box of kleenex.

I woke up at 4:00 am because of this cold and since I couldn't sleep I began soldering and trying to figure out how to build an interactive bot. I first tried using my video wireless microphones but had a hard time with that. That needed an amplifier on the other end of the wireless unit. I built a simple one but it didn't work so I took my son's old PC speakers (actually my old old speakers) and decided to use that as the amplifier and speakers. Since it was 12v, I attached it to my NEW power supply (I finally got a decent power supply !!!)

My son has been having problems with his computer's sound so that should have been my first clue. Only one speaker of the pair worked. That was my second clue. After hooking it up to the neon and my wireless units, I started smelling something. Then it started smoking and some wires melted away and there was a pop. Good thing it was just a bench test and not in my robot. No flames so all is well.

I scrapped that entire idea (the el cheapo idea) and moved to more expensive options. Radio shack sells a nice stereo wireless indoor/outdoor speaker. Not too big and powered by 12v. The salespeople gave it great reviews with it's sound quality. Most people use it to play Music off their computer while they're sitting poolside. I had to go to a couple of stores but finally got one.

After removing all my old sound components I put this new system together and it worked like a charm. Hooked up the brain lights and used my old light controller to light the belly lights and the two large chest lights. I used green and red gels to color the large chest lights and they worked beautifully.

In my haste, I didn't do a good job hooking the chest lights to my controller. Once I had my robot together, I powered it up and stood back and proudly looked at and listened to the robot with my wife. After a few minutes, I thought I smelled something burning. Sure enough. The chest lights bad connection fried another channel on my light controller. I'll admit I rushed this job today but sometimes you have to pull out the stops. Whatever breaks can be repaired is my motto so go for it. Plus when I get time I'll hook the chest lights to the Tom W. controller that controls the brain. I just don't have the time for that now.

It took me awhile to discover where the problem was. I removed the brain first suspecting that. Then I found the bad wiring on the chest lights.

Since I about finished my bezel and buttons I temporarily mounted them in my robot so there's no hole in the middle. They actually look pretty nice. I also laid a front acrylic vent I made in the front of the robot but accidentally dropped it and it busted. The glue on the repair job is drying as I type.

To look at the robot, most people would think it was done. But in actuality I still have a lot to do before it's complete. I may hook the closed circuit TV to my VCR and record the reaction from kids. If they even care ... I don't know what to expect tomorrow.

I went through about 2 boxes of kleenex today (my cold) and I'm whipped

More power supply woes

Tonight my new power supply and dc/dc converter arrived in the mail. Also a Tom W. light controller and brain LED lights arrived. I dismanteled my robot in the garage and once again transported him into the operating room (our dining room).

I must be jinxed when it comes to power supplies. Tech support at astrodyne recommended a severely underpowered power supply. When the robot starts talking, the power supply turns off and then back on. It's only a 2 amp power supply. I thought it was 25 amp. Oh well .... my fault for not noticing that.

I pulled out my radio shack breadboard and hooked up the Tom W. brain led's to the new controller. It worked perfect and looked very nice. However, to hook up the chest lights will take a lot of work and time. Not enough time between now and Saturday to do that (block party on Saturday). I'll possibly use my old controller for the chest lights temporarily IF I can get a decent power supply between now and then.

The bezel and buttons are finished but the torso bezel area needs to have more fiberglass filed from the torso bezel area.

So many things to do.

Got my buttons and bezel from Craig today. I'm glad I didn't make my own. These are beautiful and are worth the money. I spent a few hours filing the pewter bezel tonight.

Also ordered a real power supply today and a DC/DC converter (12v to 5 v) for the motors. Tech support at the power supply company said that multi voltage power supplies must start with a certain load on them or you could have problems with the voltage all over the place. That was probably the problem with my PC Power supplies. They were multiple voltage power supplies. I guess it has something to do with there's not much of a regulator on a multi voltage power supply. If you just get a plain old 12v power supply then it's not a problem. Enough on power supplies.

Knee hinges and PC parts

Sometimes I let ideas churn in my mind for days or weeks and keep picking it apart or try to think of better ways to do things. Attaching knee hinges to my robot has been on my mind for at least a month. One of my ideas for attaching the knee hinges was to use a PC periphreal slot cover for attaching the knee hinge to the bottom knee plate.

Until last week, I only had some steel cut out in the shape of knee hinges (from Scott's scratch n dent sale). Still a lot of work to whip them into shape. Then Dean decided to sell all his robot parts so I picked up all his knee hinges for $4.00. I couldn't say no to that. You can't get anything for $4.00 nowadays. When they arrived in the mail I couldn't believe how nice they were. And they fit in nicely with my PC periphreal slot cover plan.

As you can see in the pictures, I cut a few inches off the slot covers and using small screws, attached them to the knee hinges. Then I measured and put one screw into the bottom knee plate. It was too easy and worked perfect. I didn't want to attach it to the top plate because I like having the option of tearing my robot down completely to the treadbox if I want.

Also did my final finishing of the torso hooks. I spent waaaaay too much time on them but I actually enjoyed making them. One thing I shouldn't have done in my finishing was to use paintable caulk. That wasn't wise and I ended up sanding all that off and used soft bondo filler (red stuff). They came out good. I also took some scrap rubber I had laying around and made a few gaskets for the torso hooks. I'll probably mount them on the robot one day this week.

We have a block party this coming Saturday. The robot seems to think he's invited...

It's Alive !!!!

Today I was able to fix the neon again and this time I determined the problem was definately the zeon diodes. They are a pain and not actually needed. I completely re-wired the neon 3 times in the last 24 hours and now it finally works. All the .wav files will need to be re-rendered and have the background noise removed to keep the neon from flickering when the background noise sounds.

I spent about 4 hours mounting the neon inside my torso. That was difficult because there's not much to attach the backplate to. Plus the backplate was shaped oddly. It was actually impossible to line up perfectly. But it looked pretty good. Some members of the B9 group asked me to document the backplate/neon attachment so I made a video. It can be viewed at http://www.floridarobot.com/b9/media/backplate.wmv

I also wired the belly lights but when I attached it to the PC power supply, It blew one of the channels on my light controller. Those @#%#@% PC power supplies are nothing but a pain in the neck. They're worthless. I scrounged up another 1amp transformer that I had in a drawer that was for some ancient appliance of our past. It worked fine powering the belly lights and controller. I just rerouted the lights on channel 1 to another channel.

So now the lights and the neon with voice work. Time to hook everything up and put the robot back together in the garage. I even got the bubble out and put it on. Fired up the lights and voice (I have him programmed for continuous yakking) and grabbed a beer and sat in the garage watching him. My wife also grabbed a beer and came out and we savored the moment together. There's still a lot to do but this robot is definately alive.

Afterward we watched a few episodes of lost in space season 2. Another WILD Saturday night !!!!

Neon blues

It's amazing how everything can be going so well one minute and then quickly go down the tubes. Neon tubes in this case. I thought my neon project was over tonight and finished soldering and heat taping all my connections. Fire it up and guess what? It didn't work. The middle tubes wouldn't light while the voice sounded. So I redid almost every connection and it still didn't work. Finally I took out the diodes and then it worked again. But not very well. The entire neon project is disassembled and I'm back at square one. I've replaced transistors, wires and re-soldered. I'm pretty disgusted so I'll just look at it in the morning. ARGGGG!

This "Sound Cube" contains a speaker, neon transformer with sound interface, sound system and amplifier. It can play continuous robot sounds for many hours and provides background noise of the robot. All in a nice compact cube.

Another PC Power supply experiment

I got another PC power supply today which has an even smaller footprint than that last power supply I experimented with. The last one was bad.

This PC power supply powered my lights and my 6v motor for the brain fine BUT ... the sound and neon just weren't right. The sound was a bit distorted and the neon didn't fire as consistantly as when I used my 1 amp transformer that I pulled off an old appliance and snipped the ends. This doesn't make much sense but I'm not an expert when it comes to the electrical side of things.

Today in the mail I got a set of knee hinges for only $4.00 from a guy who was selling all his robot parts. These knee hinges are BEAUTIFUL and are ready to go on. Painted, textured and just right. What a bargain. I also got a motor to power the crown from him.

Maybe I'll just use 2 power supplies. This PC power supply for the lights and motors and something else for the sound and neon ....

NOTE from several days later: The supposed good PC power supply fried one channel of my light controller. I no longer consider PC power supplies as a possible source of robot power.

Neon and PC power supply experiment

The major task yesterday was hooking up neon to the sound system on the bench. I attached my one amp 12v power transformer to the neon transformer, the sound unit with amplifier and the neon sound interface. It sounds complicated but really isn't difficult. The neon used was the Dennis W. Neon which is excellent quality.

The amazing part is it worked first time without problems.

One problem encountered was when I tried to get components to work with a PC power supply. The PC power supply was unpredictable and didn't work at all with my sound system. It did power the lighting controller but was completely erratic and kept shutting itself off. Since it was in the junk heap at work it may be a bad power supply that fails under load. I'll see if I can experiment with another pc power supply to run my robot. Other people in the B9 builders club have successfully done it so it's dooable.

Tonight after getting home from work, I soldered the transistor and wires together on a small piece of an electronics breadboard that I cut to size with my bandsaw. My son Paul worked with me on this a bit since he is good at soldering. Only took 2 tries. Powered it up and it tested ok. Next step is to attach the neon to the backing plate and add blinking lights and spinning motors. The fun stuff. This project is coming together fast.

There was one problem with voice to neon. My background (looping) robot sounds also triggers the neon which looks bad. A suggestion from one of the B9 members was to split the tracks into a stereo signal and only run the background noise from one channel. Great idea. That should take care of that problem. There are a lot of innovative and helpful people in the B9 builders club.

The neon looks beautiful even though it's just laying on my dining room table. The sound system works with a remote control. I'm trying to keep the electronics portion of my robot as compacted as possible in a small removable cube.

Brain Day

A lot was completed today. I assembled and soldered a brain that I bought from Scott S. in his scratch and dent sale. Most of the assembly went well but bending the metal around the eye areas wasn't crisp and I'm not satisified with the results but have to live with it. After assembly, I soldered it. That way you can remove the temporary tabs that hold it together on initial assembly. I left a few of the tabs that were pressed on too tight. Using a screwdriver to pry them loose cost me several nasty cuts on my hand. This coupled with one burned finger from the torch in the soldering process made for a higher incidence of bodily injury than normal : )

Later in the afternoon I primed and painted the brain and NOW the last piece of the B9 puzzle is understood. Before, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the brain cam attaches to the brain cup. And that was because I was looking at Brad's brain which doesn't seem to be compatible with the brain cup and the cam. His brain is much different. Mine had a circle cutout with 4 notches to put screws in to attach to the brain cup leaving room for the cam.

Next task: Since I had the torch out and still had 9 good fingers, it was time to make the pewter torso hooks From Dennis W's. Torso hook kit. Lucky Dennis sent an extra hook just in case. I totally screwed up the first one and needed that spare. The second one was marginal and THEN I figured out the correct way to do it. Applying the heat UNDER the base after drilling holes in the base to push the pewter through. Push enough pewter through the hole to fuse. Before I tried heating the pewter on the top of the base. The first experiment I didn't drill the holes all the way through and tried fusing it to the countersunk holes (bad idea).

So one of the torso hooks had a thin area on top. I applied fiberglass to the hooks in the areas that needed a little beefing up. After sanding and painting, they should be good to go.

The brain cup and neck piece had some fiberglass applied, sanding and painting. In the process a small piece of my brain cup broke off. The brain cup was made out of resin and it was a very difficult piece to make. Fortunately that the small piece that broke off won't be seen or missed.

I finished my Scott S. ears and then noticed one of them didn't work. The bottom long shaft came out and that ear cam doesn't turn. I'm really bummed out about this. Looks like only one ear will work. Anyone have a spare Scott S. Ear they want to sell?

Another intimidating task is looms on the horizon .... drilling holes in the bubble. I think I'll wait until today's injuries heal.

Experiments with PC power supply

The 300w ATX PC power supply that I was experimenting with last
night just didn't seem to cut it. So many unpredictable things
happened I'm just glad I didn't fry any of my electronics.

Until now I've been getting my electronics to work using a 12v 1 amp
transformer and everything works great with that. The PC power
supply is a totally different story. It's 12v 12a (Yellow and black
wires) so maybe being 12 amps is part of the problem.

I was shorting the green to a black wire to get the power supply to
come alive and that works .... kind of. When it powers my light
controller and I push the light controllers off button (on a totally
different set of wires) the power supply turns off itself. Maybe
it's like the Pc function of shutting itself down and powering off.
Also the light controller lighted erratic using the PC power supply
as opposed to the transformer.

My sound system/amplifier works very well with the transformer I had
but wouldn't even turn on but a second with this pc power supply.

So now I'll look to buy a power supply.

Robot on the road to recovery

Ok, Since the name of this site is "CONFESSIONS" of a B9 builder Lost in Space, I figured it's time to "fess up" to the stupidest mistake I've made on my B9 thus far. It started when I removed the torso from the robot and layed it in a fold up chair. This lines it up in perfect position to drill holes.

The goal was to mount the microphone and switch. After carefully measuring and double checking, two 5/8" holes were precisely and carefully drilled into the torso. I'm mounting a real microphone inside my external mic and needed the holes that size. Instead of using the epoxy I (thank God) used goop to mount my microphone and torso ring for the switch. I even went back and verified pictures to make sure I put the microphone on the correct side.

Thirty minutes later we were leaving to go out to celebrate my mom's birthday. On the way through the garage, I proudly showed my wife the microphone and switch freshly mounted on the robot. It looked super and I was very proud.

All of a sudden a sick feeling welled up from the bottom of my stomach. Wait a minute, am I looking at this right? Oh my GOD !!!!! The torso was turned around and I mounted/drilled/glued the microphone and switch on the wrong side. On the top instead of the bottom. How could I have made such a stupid mistake?

Fortunately goop is slow drying so both pieces were easily pried off the torso with a screwdriver and all the goop was easily removed from the torso and parts. Then I stepped back and just stared at the two new torso holes in disbelief.

On our way home that night I stopped at Lowes and picked up a couple of rubber corks that fit perfectly in the holes. Possibly that could work to help fill the holes.

So yesterday after tapping the minds of other B9 builders and having some fun, I picked up a pint of fiberglass resin on the way home from work. The rubber corks were inserted partially into the holes from the back and a piece of duct tape held them in place so they wouldn't slip out. Fiberglass was then mixed and some hardner added. The directions are so lame .... 1/4 of the can to 1/4 of the tube proportion. So how do you measure 2 plastic spoons worth? It's all guesswork but better to be on weaker end of the hardner so it doesn't harden in 30 seconds (that happened to me once when mixing bondo for the B9 torso). By the time I got done mixing it, it was hard as a rock.

After filling both holes I smoothed it out as carefully as I could. About a half hour later I pulled the corks out and then applied a generous amount of fiberglass on the inside. I had a little leftover and used that to reinforce the neck area of the robot.

Once it dried, it seemed to be a solid fix. Several coats of bondo spot puddy and you can't even tell a hole was there. It was much easier to fix than I anticipated. Another good learning experience.

I also trimmed my neon backing plate and started working on a strategy to mount that. Looks pretty easy. Then I drilled and mounted the microphone and switch in the correct place.

B9 undergoing surgery

Major surgery underway due to yesterday's screwup.

According to patient confidentiality laws we are unable to disclose details at this point.

DISASTER STRIKES !!!!!!

What happened to my robot tonight is so horrible and embarassing I'm not going to put it into this journal. I'm sick about it and even sicker because it's my fault. I now get to learn how to repair a fiberglass torso.

I'm not writing about that incident until I fix the damage.

Oh and stay tuned to next week when I start wiring my robot. There should be a nice fire story to go along with that part of the journal. At least at the rate I'm going.

Speaking of wiring, something good also happened today. I found an old PC that my company was throwing out and I asked if I could have the power supply. After a little experimenting, I got the power supply to work outside the pc. You have to ground the green wire on the main cable to the black wire next to it (either one). Then you fool the power supply into thinking it's hooked up to the computer. This power supply has 3.3v, 12v and 5v outputs available. The fan is very quiet. Should be an interesting week.

Where's that fire extinguisher....

Recycling acrylic circles

Just shot another coat of paint on radar after work. If I can get even a little bit done every day then I can keep momentum going and not stall.

A couple of high school kids came over to work on their physics class project ... building a mousetrap car. Yeah, yeah this is B9 related in a way. When I created my lower radar pieces a week or so ago, I used 1/8" acrylic for the top and bottom but cut it the wrong size (exactly the same as the middle).

The boys were using CD's for their wheels on the mousetrap car (A car powered by a mousetrap) but weren't having much luck at propelling it any distance. My 12" 1/8" acrylic pieces worked better for their project's wheels. They used my drill press and hole cutter to shave weight from the wheels. Each wheel went from 7 oz. to a little more than 5 oz. That's almost a 4 oz savings. Hope they do good in class tomorrow.

Today I ordered my Neon transformer and sound interface also. Next week there will be a talking neon emitting robot around here. That will be cool. Especially when those custom phrases the club is working on become available.

First time bubble appearance

Didn't get too much done today besides watching the Buccaneers tromp Minnesota in the first game of the season.

I just sanded the radar then shot some primer and paint on the pieces. It's something how many flaws magically appear once the paint gets applied. I borrowed a brain to see how everything lines up and am wondering how that brain cam fits in between the brain cup and the brain.

Earlier today I unpacked my bubble and carefully put it on my radar and brain cup. I can't believe it looks so cool. Then I carefully packed the bubble back up again so I don't accidently scratch/break/smash it

My wish list of things to do was a page long today. Even though I only checked off one item from that list, it was significant - finishing the assembly of the radar.

All the smooth acrylic and hardboard surfaces still need to be sanded before painting. The upper piece also needs to be epoxied to the lower piece, the ear holes in the styrene need triming and then a coat of primer and paint. Then I'll research which motors to purchase to power the ears.

Over the large bottom half of the radar where the ear holes go, I laminated styrene around that surface. I got the idea from Bob Grainers website. He used roof flashing. The styrene covered a few cosmetic problems with that piece. It looks great.

The band saw was used to cut the notches in the upper piece of acrylic circles. It was much easier than I thought. That band saw is my new favorite tool.

The 8 corner pieces were pretty easy to make out of acrylic. After measuring one and cutting it on the bandsaw, I used the bench belt sander to get it the exact size. Then I used that one as a template and traced it on scrap 1/4" acrylic with a fine tip marker.

I glued the coupler for the 1 1/2" pipe into the opening of the acrylic top part of the radar. It fits good.

Dad stopped over and helped for awhile. He took apart the jig saw and fixed it. I bought it at a garage sale a month ago but there were problems with the bottom guide plate . As cheap as power tools are nowadays I should have just bought new but this was an older craftsman jigsaw and I like the feel of it.

Programming bay on the cheap

I have a ton of scrap wood so I might as well put it to use. I created a programming bay out of the leftover 1/8" hardboard that I cut tonight to finish off the top and bottom of the large radar circles. Tomorrow my radar will be complete.

The challenge with making a programming bay out of wood is to get the angles right so it fits in the torso. The top piece of the programming bay I made is out of 1/2" mdf. To line up everything and get the angles correct, I attached a strip of velcro to the top 1/2" piece and back 1/8" piece. I'll mount some bolts to my torso and attach those to the 1/2" top piece and once all that's lined up, I'll figure out a way to attach the top and back more permanent. I'll need to get some rails for my vents before I make anything permanent to make sure the vents work with the programming bay.

Several weeks ago I made a programming bay back piece out of 1/2" mdf but then realized the toggle switches wouldn't mount in the 1/2" wood. I looked on the allied electronics site for deeper mounting switches then thought why not just make another one out of 1/8" wood and use toggle switches I already have. It took all of 15 minutes to make another piece out of 1/8" wood.

Radar coming along

Projects went smooth today. I borrowed Brad's radar unit (in the robot picture) and that inspired me to finish mine. Robot looks great with collar and radar.

So tonight after work, I sanded some of my radar fins on my belt sander to try and get them as uniform in size as possible. Using a lower speed on acrylic seems to work better. That's a handy tool and I find myself using it all the time.

I laminated all my radar fins together and was able to cut the ear holes in the main (larger wood) radar section. I had trouble figuring how I was going to drill that piece of wood until I figured out I could loosen the set screws of my drill press and shift the main mechanism sideways over my bench. I clamped the large round wood piece in the bench and positioned the drill press over it and nicely aligned holes were the result.

Still hacking away

Sometimes when I'm tired and start rushing, everything seems to go to hell in a handbag. Tonight was one of those days. One mistake turns to two then three and before I know it, I've screwed up several different pieces. Tonight it was my radar unit that suffered. Like everything else on this project I'll end up redoing those pieces.

One thing that came out OK was I glued one of my vents tonight. But the wife said some of the ribs were not evenly spaced. Maybe I'll redo that too ! If I would have saved all my redo's I could have ended up with 2 robots. One all crooked and imperfect, and the other one perfect.

So after a few hours of hacking, I just walked away and will pick up the pieces tomorrow.

Today I stopped by Brad's new house and we dug through his unpacked boxes from the move to get to the set of ears I was getting from him. They're the ears with the gears that Scott S. makes. He also loaned me his radar to take home and examine. He got this radar from a set of parts he purchased a few months ago from a member. His radar looks a lot different than how mine is coming along. But it's still interesting to see the different ways there are to build this stuff. I feel sorry for Brad because he now has a million new house projects he needs to do and it's going to mess up his robot building schedule even more.

When I got home, I bought a few things from home depot for building my radar. I also spent a few hours getting this web blog working. I also popped his radar on my new collar on the robot and it looks really cool. I was tempted to pull my bubble out and try it on for size but don't want to tempt disaster.

Momentous occasion - I now have a collar

Today was the big day. The day I take this pile of acrylic and turn it into a collar. I spent most of the morning lining up the acrylic circle pieces and trying to come up with a good system to support the pieces.

I ended up cutting 4 pieces of 1/4" acrylic supports to hold it up with 1/8" pieces that were on the ends extending into the upper and lower circle. I took my time and ended up with a solid base that was lined up nicely.

After a few hours my wife and I tackled the collar. I was worried about the fumes in the house but she suggested doing it on the dining room table. Am I a lucky guy or what !!! She even helped me do at least half of the collar. We both glued ribs throughout the day. Yvonne has helped me with a lot of the robot. I feel sorry for her having to listen to me babbling about robot ideas/projects all the time.

We first glued the bottom of the ribs and after they dried I went through and did the tops. There was a little gap with some of the ribs so we weighted them down after applying copius amounts of acrylic glue. It worked just fine and the collar came out great.

It's a relief it's done and came out well. I think I've been subconsciously finding excuses to NOT make the collar the last couple of weeks. Glad it's behind me.

Buying more parts

I took a break from robot building in the morning and headed to the beach with my wife. It's easy to get burned out if you spend too much time on the robot. I'm a little fried around the edges but still loving every minute of it.

I laminated the acrylic circles for the collar today. One strange thing that happened was a little disturbing. The acrylic glue I used showed through the acrylic after it dried. The way I smeared it on the acrylic showed through. Just another lesson learned. This was with an acrylic glue that was thickened. I should have got the thin watery stuff I guess. No matter, I found it doesn't matter what the acrylic looks like since nobody will see that portion. The ribs are what counts.

This evening, I decided to purchase a few parts from club vendors. I'm going to get a good quality power pack replica, ear flaps (go on the ears), bezel backing, and a stainless crown. The aluminum crown I have is ok but I feel that is a very important visual part of the robot and a shiny stainless crown will look nice in the blinking lights. I ordered these parts from Bill K and Rod Rickenbach. I also ordered a set of fiberglass side panels from Trent in Austrailia. I couldn't get in touch with Norm but I hear he's got a million things going on.

Research

Tonight after going out to dinner, my wife and I watched episodes of Lost in space. It's fun seeing the robot and comparing the images to what we have so far.

I have been spending more time working on the robot than keeping track of the progress here so we're missing a few days.

After, I purchased a inexpensive bench belt sander and used it to smooth the edges of all the collar ribs. I also sanded some of the radar pieces I made and am very glad I bought this tool. It's going to come in handy but I just wish I bought it back in June when I started this project.