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 !!!!
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