Bye bye Creature

We decided to put our 7 foot sea creature up for adoption the other day and in no time we found a new loving family for the little guy. Our robot room is only so big and since the creature wasn't a robot he was the logical choice first one of who should find a new home. I'll be able to squeeze a robot into his place and use some of the $$ towards paying some bills .... translation - make the wife happy.

The creature will be right at home in his new digs. They promised to take him for a ride in their new Delorean and he will have a B9 and Robby to play cards with as well as a cool animatronic life size chimp. Of course we expect to retain full visitation rights next time we get out to California. Oh and I just received an email from the new parents who wrote " We promise that we won't let him go too California either. No blond highlights for sure or tie-dye."

Too bad I never got around to taking him to the Everglades to surprise a few tourists.

Flooded with robot brain storms

I keep coming up with ideas of robots I want to build. I will probably build them but who knows when. Some of the ideas are pretty strange I must admit but they will be fun projects. I'll never be a Clayton Baily but that's the direction I have my ship pointed. Clayton Bailey makes very cool and sometimes very bizarre robot creations. He published a superb book with pictures of his creations. The creations are not for everyone. Some of the sculptures have anatomically correct (kind of) parts that make some people uncomfortable. I think they're "the tops" though (from Seinfeld).

The Bender head now has a new mouth and a fresh coat of paint. He looks GREAT. The collar area has been built up with Bondo and hopefully after getting another coat of paint there, it will look more concentric. The inside of his belly area has also been cut more and sanded with some kilz primer painted on. Since it's a lot of MDF and 2x2's, I know that using my expensive rustoleum hammered paint will just soak in. The primer will make it easier to coat the inside. After the inside is painted, I'll add some wires and electronics and fill him up with Bender's own favorite "Old Fortran" beer. Even though I don't like people to open his belly door because it's fragile, I realize he needs his beer.

On the R2 front, I haven't done much more than research. After Bender and C3PO are ready for the science museum, R2 will return to the main project. I ordered an aluminum center foot and mounting equipment for the caster. I also got on a waiting list to get an aluminum leg. Why not. Literally spending an arm and a leg on this robot. I really want the drive train on my R2 to be exactly like Daniel's which in my opinion is the absolute best.

B9 fried his ear radars the other day. So that's something else I'm going to have to add to my list of robot chores.

Changing B9 power supply and Belly lights to LED

At MegaCon, B9 ran for up to 9 hours at a time. That's when I noticed there was a problem with the power supply. I think it was too powerful of a power supply which was why it fried B9's belly lights every couple hours. It went through about 50 lights (Thanks Charlie for bringing some out from Denver for me) during the show. The last couple hours at MegaCon, one lone belly light was left blinking in B9.

The blinker controller and rats nest of wires that were connected to the belly lights always has bothered me. Even though it was redone a few weeks ago, it was still a rats nest.

So I removed all the belly light sockets and cut off the part that the bulb goes into. That left a small shaft and a way to attach the colored lenses. After making a template of the holes on a piece of styrene, I cut two holes in each light bulb slot on the template. Then the blinking LED's were fed into the holes and attached to two thin long breadboards. Of course, hot glue was used to attach the LED's to the breadboard. Not only is hot glue a good insulator, it firmly attached all the LED's. I let them protrude forward as much as I could so they are level with the beginning of the colored lenses.

After a few hours, B9 had a nice neat little blinking LED belly light box. I hooked it into a switch in the programming bay and fired it up. I have to admit it looks spectacular. And the inside of B9's torso is much neater now. This should have been done this long ago. It only took a few hours.

Having LED's mean less heat, less power consumption, and no more burnt out bulbs.

As far as the power supply problem, I switched out the current power supply with a radio shack 12v power supply. That works perfect and also lightens the leg section by about 10-15 pounds. The Tripp power supply that was in the B9 was just too powerful.

These delicate robots

One of the disadvantages of moving a robot is that you greatly increase the odds that something on your robot will get damaged. For some insane reason, I decided to rewire my B9 again the other day (but I'm glad I did because it's really neat inside the torso now). That entailed moving him out to the garage.

Well, somehow in the move, the adjustable voltage regulator in the head broke. The casing that held the input voltage broke right off. As the regulator is attached inside the radar unit, that posed a real problem. I finally ended up fixing it after a lot of work by directly soldering the input wires onto contacts in the regulator and then hot glueing it together to keep the wires from tugging on anything and to insulate the connection. IT WORKED !!! But ... that problem caused another. The shafts to my ears fell out and I thought they were lost for good. Those are required to make the ears turn. While drinking my morning coffee, I thought about where they could have fallen out and by pure luck, found them in the corner of my garage. Very lucky that time. So now B9 is online and in good shape.

Millions of other issues are cropping up days before the SciFi Robot invasion so I need to get going and get ready. I took today off to take care of some of these details.

B9 closure

The B9 appears to most people as finished. However there were several nagging little projects that were put off over and over. This weekend between working on the Robby electronics, I finally installed my B9's programming bay permanently and hooked up the switches and light on the programming bay. After a few failed attempts (several months ago) with epoxy putty, Hot glue worked excellent to mount the programming bay.

I'm also (FINALLY) in the process of mounting my B9's side vents. The vents were made but never installed. The important thing I must remember when installing these vents is to easily allow access to the inside. So I'm hot glueing some brackets inside the torso so I can hang the vents from with small pull ties. That will allow access by pushing open the vents when you need to reach inside the robot. Hot glue seems to be the weapon of choice nowadays. It dries quickly and is very strong. Plus you can (if you work at it) remove the glue if you have a change of heart.

On the Robby front, I built and installed a panel in front of the neon to protect the neon and mount the speakers to. This panel also has a computer controller for the electronics.

I initially tested the Robby ears and had to re-mount a motor axle inside one of the ears. On one ear I used epoxy dough and on the other I used gorilla glue. It's good to experiment with different techniques. It's a toss up which one was best. The difficult part was lining the axle inside the ears so it's straight. Getting it completely straight completely eluded me so my ears will have a little wobble in them as they spin. I've been working on the "C" controller program and am in the process of writing a program to randomoly move the ears in different directions and different speeds at random times.

Fun stuff. I'm working at a much faster pace than I usually prefer but time is running out to get these robots done by MegaCon. And I don't want to wait until the last minute.

Neon Zap

Brad, a fellow B9 builder stopped over today so we could work on his neon. He had an unusual neon setup that had a chip built into the transformer for voice activation. Originally we took it outside to work on a table because my wife threatened us both if we caught the dining room table on fire.

The neon lighted up real nice but the voice activation feature just wouldn't work. When we felt the transformer was safe we brought it into the house and put it on the dining room table with a couple towels under it. Well, murphy struck and poor Brad got a nasty shock from the neon's pull cord. There was a short somewhere in the transformer. That transformer went directly into the trash. Fortunately I had a spare transformer that I was able to give Brad. That one also had a problem but we were able to diagnose it and now his robot now lights up and talks.

Should you ever completely trust your robots?

Most people are familiar with Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

A recent incident at a fellow B9 robot builders house in Michigan this weekend has me questioning these laws. Do ALL robots follow them or are they fooling us and acting the way we expect them to until the "day of reckoning"? A couple of days ago Robert K. of the B9 builders club was preparing a container that was to hold his "Robby Robot" that I was enroute from Florida to pick up. When unexpectedly a certain "coincidental" and unfortunate set of events was set in motion that led to the top part of his B9 robot crashing down upon his head and almost rendering him unconscious ! He had a headache for the entire day and if he wasn't wearing a hat (the brow protected his face) then his face would probably have been scarred and cut.

Maybe it was an accident. Or, call me a little paranoid but just maybe B9 was not too pleased with his owner selling Robby ... his one and only companion robot. We'll never know, but maybe ... just maybe, this is a wakeup call for robot owners everywhere to be on their guard.

Not only did Robert get hurt but his B9 brain was destroyed as well as his bubble shattered. It was a sad sight to behold.

Bob May in WPB

We had a chance to meet Bob May (the man in the Lost in Space Robot) at the West Palm Beach Science museum this weekend. They had a new robotic exhibit and had Bob May was there to kick it off. He's a super guy and told me to tell the members of the B9 builders club he appreciates all our support and enthusiasm toward the robot.

Another chance encounter at the museum happened with the guy (and his wife) who first told me about building B9 robots a couple years ago. Doug Vater and his wife Wanda were at the exhibit with their R2. I remember meeting Doug and somehow it came up that he built a Lost in Space Robot. That totally blew me away and for a couple months I couldn't stop thinking that people were actually building these robots. And that's what inspired me to consider building my own. Thanks Doug and Wanda !

Here's a few pictures of the event this weekend.

Members of the B9 club stop by

Today was a great day because Charlie G. and his wife from the B9 robot builders club stopped by. It was Charlie's birthday and his wife treated him to a weekend at Disney world with time to stop by here for a visit.

Well a couple hours seemed like only a couple minutes and before we knew it they were on their way home. It was nice discussing robots and building ideas. Charlie's Batcave is a very cool project that he has been working on.

After they left, I was inspired to finished the dome for my Gort robot and it actually came out better than I thought.I still need to hot glue it to a foam base I made and then hotglue that to the sonotube.

Thanks to the robots I'm now deaf !

I used the new router circle cutter I built to cut some wood circles for the top and bottom reinforcement of the torso. My ears are still ringing !!!! That was the noisiest experience I've ever had. And I used to shoot the 3" guns onboard my ship when I was in the Navy about a milion years ago. I'm sure people miles away heard me cutting the wood. My wife told me the neighbors dog started barking like crazy until the owner took him in.

So .... until I get some ear protection, the next two cuts I have planned on the router will have to wait. My ears won't be the same.

Ok, so on the GORT Front, I figured out how to get the stickiness off the inside of the sonotube. Degreaser and paper towels did the trick. After that I trimmed the torso and started preparing for cutting the arms and face holes out.

Since most of today was spent appeasing the wife in a long overdue list of home improvement projects, there wasn't that much robot work. It's getting harder and harder to get in good honest robot building time.

Robot building season

Now that the Florida robot building season is upon us, new projects are slowly starting to form while the older ones are finishing up. Some of these new projects are a little bizarre to say the least. But fun !

The plan of building the second B9 has been officially abandoned so I will be selling the B9 parts in November. They take up a lot of room and money from the sale of the B9 parts will finance other projects.

Recently, I found a John Riggs Robby for sale but there were two people who responded to the ad before me. IF they pass on it, then I'll be able to purchase it. However, hope is fading fast and it's apparent that Robby won't be available to me. However .... a different Robby opportunity has possibly opened up so we'll see where that goes.

Jawa needs a facelift

I'm still in home improvement projects mode so not as much robot building going on.

Last couple of days I was giving some attention to the Jawa. His hood needed work to keep it in the correct shape to semi hide his head. I also worked on the face and eyes. Jawas don't have pupils and the eyeballs I used before had pupils. Today his torso will be rounded out some and the lower hips will get some work. He needs to look good when he meets the R2's at the picnic next week.

I heard C3PO shipped out Friday late afternoon (Thank-you Helen at MC). He should be home in several days and I'm anxious to see how well the plating came out. This gives me one or two days to get him ready for the picnic/meet with the R2 club next Saturday.

I also worked on the resin wheels I made for my B9. If I can get these resin wheels working then I'll sell the aluminum set to finance more robot madness. Speaking of which .. I got a cool remote controlled miniature Dalek last week and recently joined the Dalek builders club. That would be a fairly easy project I imagine. But not until I finish these other projects.

Chatter on the B9 forum about blinking LED's prompted me to find and order some white and red blinking LED's. I'll use them to build a new brain and set of finger lights. Too many wires in the brain now. Which reminds me ... yesterday I painted (hammered silver) a set of the new Scott S. motorized ears which will go into my new radar / brains. I also need to paint this cool radar unit. The mechanisms are ready for bubble up/down and radar left/right motions. I'll try to incorporate the vex system to do all that.

SMASH !!!!

Imagine my surprise when I got home from work today and found the head of my B9 hanging by a wire against the torso. Somehow it was bumped off the torso. Fortunately it had the "stunt bubble" on it because it was in the garage (just in case). I've been planning on redoing the electronics in that part of the B9 completely anyway so I can deal with fixing it.

Nothing terribly broken but I'm glad he wasn't wearing his formal bubble. So I decided to bring B9#1 back in the house and bring B9#2 out to the garage. I'm thinking about using all the premium pieces from B9#2 for my primary B9 so I have a heavy duty B9 ready for the sci-fi robot convention. The steel treadsection and fiberglass legs and knees are very strong and won't get accidentally damaged in transport or at the convention. It probably wouldn't take too much effort either.

C3PO plating has gone slightly stale. The plating company is having troubles with his torso and I'm guessing they wish they never took the job. I was expecting him to be shipped over 2 weeks ago but as of yet, I'm not sure when that will happen. With the R2 club picnic looming in a few weeks I was hoping to bring a shiny protocol droid to the picnic along with the Jawa. It's going to be cutting it close.

I've been redoing the jawa and giving him a complete face lift and head redo. New eyes and resoldering all the electrical connections with a fuse and quick disconnect for the head. Also I ran some heavy duty wire along the hood to keep his face shrounded in shadows better.

Taking it slow

It took more time than I planned but the programming bay works very good. It was difficult to line up the rails to get the vents to slide easily without binding. The only way I was able to get the correct angle and have something to glue the lower rail to was to attach a couple of pieces of scrap aluminum to the programming bay. On top of the aluminum was a nice base to lay in a good layer of adhesive putty. Now all I need to do is mount the whole unit inside the B9. That shouldn't be too difficult.

Since I got the switches in the programming bay to work and flip on the light, I wanted it to be smooth. I may even get the switch in the programming bay to power up the robot.

Another finish coat of paint went on the area of the torso around where the power pack sits. Looks nice.

B9 Power Pack, collar refurb and vents

There has definately been more building and less being at the computer updating this log lately. This weekend turned out to be fairly productive.

First off, the decision to make the second B9 is now solid. For a few weeks I thought I'd just sell the parts but it turned out that keeping them is a better decision. The second B9 will be a lot more durable with fiberglass legs, knees and a steel treadsection that I may motorize.

I had a collar that was pretty busted up and yesterday while working on the vents, I repaired the busted ribs on the collar. There were about 8 busted ribs. The shape and size of the ribs were much different than the jigs I had when I made my first collar so I just heated a few acrylic rods up with a heat gun and formed them in the shape of the other ribs by hand. It wasn't too hard actually. The repair was a little messy with some glue going places it shouldn't have. The end result should hold up pretty durable and it beats buying or fabricating a completely new collar. This one isn't bad.

The vents are now complete and ready to mount inside the robot. Now that I'm committed to the second B9, I need to fabricate another set while I have the jigs available. It's fun working with this stuff and I find it's very relaxing.

The highlight of the weekend is installing a power pack in my B9. I have no idea why I put this off for so long. The power pack looks very cool on the robot and it was actually a piece of cake to install. B9's need their power packs. Another B9 project was to glue the upper channel in the programming bay. Up until now, it was just resting inside my B9. I need to get that permanently mounted. My first attempt was using tiny bolts from the hobby shop but the heads hit the vents as they slid open and closed. That's when I chucked the bolts and grabbed the jb weld.

Another big mistake on my initial B9 was the way I made a fake soil sampler door. This weekend I was able to remove that fake door miraculously without even hurting the finish underneath. Even though there's no soil sampler door on the B9, it looks 100% better without that stupid fake door. It was glued on with GOOP and this is the second time I had to remove something that was put on with goop and I had no problems even though the goop is very strong. Good stuff !

The big disappointment of Saturday morning was my attempt to solder some LED light chasers. Even though the soldering was neat and looked perfect, they didn't work and I eventually gave up. A great learning experience with the soldering iron for sure.

I ordered the dye to dye the fiberglass legs (I like dye better than paint) on the second B9. I'm pretty sure it will work. Next weekend I'll have a bunch of those parts finished and looking sharp.

B9 tune up

It's time to redo the B9. There's so many places I cut corners that need to be redone. First step was to bring him back out to the workshop.

One thing that was never completed on the B9 was the side and rear vents. Jeff from the B9 club loaned me his jigs and tonight I glued one of the vents together. It sure was easier than when I hand glued the front vent. That was a chore. Another thing I have to redo soon is the fake soil sampler door I came up with in a fit of madness.

B9 end table

Despite the fact this blog hasn't had too much activity in the last week or so, robot building is still going strong.

First, the B9 end table is finally complete !!! I have to say it came out pretty good.

The Rosie the Robot project - motorized vacuum has been a little challenging. I've redesigned the drivetrain about 6 times and still not happy with the performance. Simply need more power.

Hurricane season is upon us so I spent most of the weekend getting a generator and building a section in the garage to store it along with hurricane supplies. After Katrina last year, I'm not taking any chances. If we get hit, where I live will turn into a small island.

If anyone knows of a life size Robby Robot for sale, please email me. I would really like to have a Robby but don't think I'm up to the challenge of building one from scratch. And even though Fred B's Robby is extremely reasonable, I just can't afford to get a new one.

Robot end table

The Robot End table is another project that I need to finish so I can focus on rewiring and finishing my B9. I've been filling in the knees with spot putty, sanding and glue the styrene to mdf knee plates. These parts are actually good enough to be used on a B9. I'm going to have legs, knees, donut and waist plate and the top will have a light illuminating up through it. Not positive how it will look but it should fit in in the robot room.

Ohm's law

Spent a little time playing around with an adjustable voltage regulator and making calculations with ohm's law. I have a lot of electrical tasks on the B9 that needs to be done. Definately not my strong suit but I'll figure it out.

Got to get the linear motion of the arms working and the radar unit/brain needs to start moving.

Robot party

We expected Bender to mix things up around here a little but were unprepared for what we found when we woke up Saturday morning. I thought I heard some singing in the night and once there was a loud crash but it was one of those times where I thought I was dreaming and just went back to sleep.

So when we get up, we discovered that it got kind of wild around here last night. All the robots were pretty tanked and the creature had a cigar in his mouth. The funniest thing was the Jawa and the B9 singing together. I think they did it more to tick off Bender because he kept telling them to shutup. I have to say though, I never saw the Jawa in a better mood.

I guess some good came of it because the B9 taught Bender and the Jawa how to play Chess. The creature didn't want to learn but had fun heckling them from the sidelines. Other than the ashes on the floor and a couple of spilled beers, nothing else was damaged. The crash I heard was the B9 falling down when he got in a chugging contest with Bender. One of his side vents came out so I'm going to have to repair him later. He kept murmuring something about his circuits being foggy.

The only robot that didn't get in trouble was R2D2. He still doesn't trust Bender and isn't influenced by him at all. Thank God there's a little piece of sanity around this house !!!!

Now to clean this mess up.....