Friday, April 12, 2019

The feet - 1

While waiting for weather to be good enough for me to work outside on the body, I decided to continue the printing task.

I chose to go on with the feet, as they are simple enough to print. Also the new drive system designed by Michael Baddeley is quite better than the previous one, so I wished to giv it a try...

Instead of a (usually 3D printed) belt, the new system uses just gears, so it should be less prone to faults, less noisy and have a bit more force to move.

Every feet has a big wheel that is connected with a gears system to an electric motor and a completely 3D printed omni wheel.

These are the wheels:


In this photo the omnis are still to be assembled as I was waiting for the bearings. The black parts are printed using TPU, so they are a bit flexible.

Here is the shell of one of the feet:


It came out quite well, but of course it needs a lot of sanding and putty, beforse the final painting. Next you can see the shell with all the pieces and one of the tubes:

mascalx

To make the tubes I just printed them using TPU, so they can be bended a little, then I covered with a metal braid.

These are the almost finished feet:


Note that some detail is not in place as I was sanding them (I can do this inside home as they are small parts).
Also the tubes has been painted. Still thinking if the color should be gold as I did or copper as seen in most of the movies... Probably I will leave them gold.

For the center foot I chose to redesign it a bit. I had some spare ball omni wheel that could be useful here. There is no drive system for the center foot, so there's no problem in using something different.
This is the result:



Still missing the outer shell, but the foot seem quite stable. Anyway only using it can show if it was a good choice.

After printing also the shell for the centre foot I will go on with the legs.

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