I give up on this shit. Not the project i will continue to update it. But this stupid hardware stuff is so confusing and i will not get enough stardust to get anything (from what im seeing im not going to get any at all) I will publish GitHub files when im done but this has been so frustrating because i have gotten ZERO help in the slack channel
I went through a bunch of ups and downs in these 4 hours there was many more hours that i forgot to log. I could not post for awhile because i had nothing to post about my project was at a standstill because i was waiting for that stupid power dock to come in. but not i got the power dock and was able to successfully turn the motors. This was such a pain because the first shipment had a defective unit. But that was not a lot of trouble because i returned it and got usable boards the next day (praise amazon) I’m going to design the rest of the hip today and hopefully this will start taking shape! I still have to get to harbor freight and see if they have nuts and bolts that i need to connect the thigh and the leg together. The second picture is the old board (I fried it by checking if current was running)
Removed the hair on my mask. I realized that it would just get in my way. And since i included the hair in the first model it was kind of hard to remove so the head is a bit bumpy. But that shouldn’t be a issue because there will be a wig on it anyway. I really don’t want this thing looking uncanny so i will have to either make this thing really cute or realistic to the point where you cant tell a difference
I’m making a 3 ft 9.5 in humanoid robot. With synthetic skin. The robot is a visual representation of 5 year old me. The design is going to feature a highly expressive bionic face. And 2 bionic arms. Im aiming for this project to be 2 grand. A pretty steep price. And i wont get funding for this because i have no clue how that works its to confusing because they are moving stuff around. Anyway this is a sculpt of my face when i was little. I’m still working on it. And i will probably end up removing the head. The head will be pretty complex. And I’m thinking of offloading the servos into the chest and use tensioning to move the stuff. Im still working out the mechanics. But i will come back with sketches. Same thing with the arms. The finger joints will NOT have motors in them. The motors will be in the forearm like neo
Man looking at those legs makes me realize that i WAY over engineered and overthought the trusses. The simpler design holds more weight that then the other design. So i will redo the leg. I’m really mad because i cant continue working on this stupid project until the power bank comes in so i know the dimensions. Until then i am VERY limited on what i could do. I guess i could start on the panels for the legs and thighs. But i was going to save that till i am happy with the design. And currently i am not happy with it
Working on the wiring. I had to first figure out exactly WHAT and HOW i would wire this. This is a very basic setup. Basically there is going to be a XT60 pigtail that i got of of hoverboard. You can see it next to my pencil. that will connect to the power bank. Into a fuse. the positive and negative will then flow move down into the sideboards (Salvaged from the hoverboard) and then a buck converter converting that 36V battery down into a usable 5V power for the razzberry pi and Arduino. Im itching to get these boards flashed so i can get into the fun stuff. But first i have to design that hip connection before i can get to excited. Im afraid when i split the power into 2 seperate rails i CANT just get away with using these butt connectors because there is WAY to much copper to fit into there so i will have to solder. And you know from my previous devlog that that is not pretty.
I got to go run to home depot and get me some bolts and nuts to secure this bad boy into place. But he is starting to take shape. I did NOT make the knee bend in this version. (Did not feel like it) BUT i did design the connection so i COULD in the future. Still waiting on that stupid power bank before i can do anything. But its slowly starting to look like a robot. Once i get that hip done it will be looking so sick. The only issue that i see with that hip is the fact that it needs to be about 11 inches long but my printer only prints about 9 so i have to figure out a secure way to split that up
I had a few test prints for this one. You can see one in the background. Also this one i had to melt some of the supports off with a soldering iron because i was a idiot and did not account for feeding the motherboard through. This leg is stress tested and holds about 250 pounds in the simulation. I need to print the hip now but Brody is starting to come together! Im still waiting on that stupid power bank so i cant flash anything or do anything with these wheels yet. Im still not sure if they will even work
I got the the spacer correct in 3 test prints. That’s pretty good in my opinion. With tolerances and stuff I’m going to print smaller versions to make sure stuff works first. But this is great! I have to design the rest of the leg since i lost all my files. But it shouldn’t be to bad because i already have an idea of what i need
I have to stop posting so often. But i did just finish the basic sketches of the robots parts. I’m now planning on making the knee bend because of the amount of prototyping I’m going to have to do and figure out what will be the best for this robot. I have looked at a few designs that i might be interested in. i will design these so i could buy motors in the future but that most likely will not be anytime soon. I would also love for the torso to rotate. But I’m not sure if that would be optimal. It sure would be cool though. I did post about this in a previous devlog. But i did realize that i had done my soldering job wrong. And even though i was able to connect to the chip it would not be able to write. So i re did the soldering
Sad that i could not log the about 3 hours i spent trying to soder. I have done it once before in tech class. But nothing this dam small. It was real challenge and i still have one more board to do. BUT this is a good learning experience. I’m very surprised that i did not fry the board because its looking a bit crispy. I just now managed to talk to the chip but i need to find the right firmware in order to flash. I also need to wait for that power bank for the battery so i have consistent power for the flash. This is probably like 6 hours of un tracked work because i couldn’t record it but whatever. I got the 3d printer today so i will get back to inventor in a bit. But i think i should do some more planning before i just dive back in. So I’m drawing images of the parts in my notebook for the next little bit because I’m so burnt out from loosing my files and having to restart
I HATE AUTODESK. I TRIED TO EXTRUDE ONE THING AND THE WHOLE SOFTWARE CRASHED. THIS IS SO AGRAVATING AND IT ALMOST SEEMS LIKE IM DOING IT ON PURPOSE BUT IM NOT. I HAD NOT DONE THE INITIAL SAVE SO THEREFORE EVERYTHING I DID TODAY IS GONE. I COULD HAVE SWORN THAT I HAD SAVED AND I THOUGHT IT WAS AUTODSAVING BUT I WAS MISTAKEN. THIS IS REALLY TESTING MY PATEINCE.
This is much stronger than the old version! After a long 4 hours i managed to direct the force (25lbs) To the metal bracket on the bottom. 25 pounds is going to be around the weight of the robot. And that’s overshooting it a lot. With this amount of stability i might even be able to ride it 🥹✌️ This design will also allow for a much easier way to add panels later on. As you can see in the 3rd picture the frame is much closer to the shape of the robot that i can snap the panels straight onto the frame. I also did some research and i found out that i can use triangular infill that will make these parts stronger while using less material.
Okay so i pulled some knowledge that i haven’t used in a while that i got from a class that i took when i was a wee little lad. And i think i designed a much more structurally sound design for Brody. This also just looks a million times cooler without panels. The only issue that i see is attaching said panels to the frame because it wont be as straight forward as the old design. But the old design was flawed in SOO many ways. I have to make sure to design this so the center of mass is not off balance.
I figured that the hip bone that i was designing before was insufficient. This design is much more in depth and less rushed. This now accounts for holding the quarter inch bolts that I’m going to use to fit the hip bone into place and not move. I have to run to harbor freight to go and get those but that will be later on. I’m hard stuck with making the hardware currently I’m waiting on a power adapter to come in on the 27th. That’s when i will first be able to control the wheels and make sure everything works. If anyone has any ideas on how i can improve this design please let me know. I feel like it should be thicker but i would love some feedback!
I don’t have any screenshots from this session because i had a power outage and i had not saved in awhile. So I’m now far behind. But in this session i made a panel for the leg. This is much harder than it looks. Because my sketches are not good proportion wise. I just hated the look of it. I had ordered a bunch of parts such as fuses, wire, butt connectors, and shrink wrap. Those arrived today but I’m still waiting on my power dock and voltage converter
I was kind of busy today so i did not get a ton of time to work on the project. I was able to get the leg separated into 2 parts. I had to go and find a whole bunch of errors that i made in order to get it working again. i modeled the battery (Forgot to log hours) And started on the panels that will wrap around the frame. I added small clips to the frame.
YAY! I Got the PCB to fit into the frame! I just now realized that i will need to model some of the smaller more intricate parts of the PCB. OR at least make basic block outs. Because there is stuff sticking out the back that i need to take into account when making the clips that hold the thing in place. really good progress. But it was a pain to get that taller the amount of conflicts that i had to resolve is actually insane. I really need to work on organization of the repo. But I’m scared that that will mess with my assembly
I am losing my mind. I feel like i never make the stuff the right way 🥹✌️I just made the size of the 2 sideboards that are controlling the motors. And it appears that i made it so terribly that i cant even angle the PCB to fit inside of the frame. So either i move the PCB up into the thigh ( A ton of extensions on the existing wires) OR i redo everything i have done. And i will probably deicide to redo everything. So that’s going to be fun! I will only have to redo the bottom part so it shouldn’t be THAT bad. Its just annoying that i speed through stuff and make stupid mistakes
I don’t know much about connectors. I’m using my basic knowledge on what makes a strong connection but some feedback would be amazing! I had to redo the part because i realized that i had made the part to big and it would not fit onto my printer. So I had to split it into 2 separate parts. I haven’t yet made the trusses on the parts because im waiting on my printer to arrive. I dont want to waste fillamaent on something that wont work. I will probbly make test parts eventualy. As im writing this that makes the most sense. I have also realised that i have not thought about how im going to mount the 2 dual board controllers. So that will be a fun one to figure out.
