NZEOD

Tonights progress. Tomahawk LED Lenses poured for the Beam Cannons and Searchlight. Then test wired to make sure everything works so far. Thats about 1/4 intensity... And primer paint on the nails...

hmmm isnt it just.... and easy to mount in the Tomahawk arms. The issue is the type of laser diode you'd need is a class IIIb laser and so is NOT a toy, should NEVER be used without the corresponding wavelength Laser Safety Eyewear and needs a focus defocus lens set up so you can apply the safety on it. Even off reflected surfaces it will still destroy things. We've made them before in the bomb hanger but that doesnt mean you SHOULD make them. Its a bit like mounting a .22 on a drone, you can but should you? But yes... a Glaug or Tomahawk mounting IIIb lasers in a dusty darkened room would be cool. Especially melting Gundams to slag.

I'd love to be able to mount weapons in them but no.... Maybe some old CRTV cathode tubes for some wood burning or some Bluray lasers for balloon popping!

Working on the Tomahawk tonight while I wait for the new smaller servos to arrive. Beam cannons both have a Neopixel LED unit in the last ring before the muzzle. The muzzle will then be filled with clear resin to form a lens like I do in the VF Superpack nozzles only a lot bigger. This will magnify the LED and should make for an interesting display when the LED "fires". The Beam LEDs will not flash but power up over a few seconds, fading up in intensity and colour from a deep purple to a Blue at about half intensity then flash to Blue White at max intensity (which is almost blinding without the lens!) to simulate charging up and firing. Then they will go from orange to red to fade out to simulate barrel heat. The biggest chest guns also have an LED and the base of each barrel and will flash Intense White/Yellow like conventional weapons. The Spotlight has a Neopixel and resin lens and will be lit like an HID light. When the motion detector triggers the Arduino sequence, the weapon arm targeters will come on first (love to use a low power red dot laser but not worth the risk to viewers) then the torso will swing as the spotlight powers up, followed by the gun fire sequence then the reverse but the spotlight going off last. In the photos are the Tomahawk which only arrived at work today, the hollowed out Defender body, one of the four Carrier decks I'm working one with an ardruino Neopixel control board, a servo control board and one of the micro servos that's still too big for the Defender! Even with all the wiring through the legs and arms, they can all still be moved and posed.... so far. Everything is still test fitted only and not glued together or mounted properly. All in good time. These pics show how the connection is made between the model and the diorama base where the Arduino boards and 5v power supply will be hidden. The VFs only needed 3 pins, one hidden in each landing gear wheel as they only have Neopixel lighting. One +5V, one GRND, one Data In line. The destroids get a whole lot messier when you start adding mixed servos and motor drives, neopixles and standard LEDs. So each foot has a 10pin connector for 20 lines into the units.

Those are the figures from the abomination that is the tabletop wargame Robotech Tactics. Warhammer 40K figure sized.

This is more the size differences between Zent/Meltrandi and Human machines I was thinking... Although the Regults need to be a bit bigger.

It looks fine. Mix the coloured with standard and you'll get a more realistic look. Not every view port will be as bright that way.

Given the failure incidents werent due to the wing surface area or lifting capabilities thats a red herring to claim its an exaggeration

nope Electronics and engineering yes but that's all military related

The F-104 Starfighter had almost pointless wings and that flew fine.

Hahah space is SUPER tight inside the Defender now!! I've dremeled as much as I dare of excess material out of the inside of the body and still have to switch from $3.95USD micro servos to $30USD digital Sub micro servos just to get the servo heights to under 18mm. So now I have a 6mm motor driving the radar at the rear in continuous rotation at 100rpm, the same style motors, one in each arm spinning the Vulcans at 1000rpm, the Hitech HS5035HD Nano servo driving the torso rotation leaving the issue of the arm raising and lowering to solve... Probably with another nano servo ... somehow... http://hitecrcd.com/products/servos/micro-and-mini-servos/digital-micro-and-mini-servos/hs-5035hd-digital-ultra-nano-servo/product That servo is as of right now, THE ABSOLUTE smallest servo you can buy off the shelf. Digital servos are more convenient for Arduino programming and control that conventional analog ones and you can set end points and soft starts (so it doesnt jerk into motion but it more human in movement) as well as the speed it moves and flash those parameters to the servo with a PC. The next major hurdle is the wiring. Using ribbon cable I would need to route it though the legs and into the chest. THis will be... interesting... to achieve at the leg to hip joint as its exposed and then up into the upper torso while still allowing the torso to twist 90° to 120°.... the alternative is to run enameled wire instead but the digital servos will be power hungry so the bigger the gauge wire the better. THe single strand enameled wires could then be spun in a drill to make into a braid and then not be so noticable BUT... will be a nightmare to match up. I need: 2 wires to the radar motor 2 wires to the left weapon 2 wires to the right weapon 3 wires to the torso twist servo 3 wires to the arm servo or 6 if I run one servo per arm 3 wires for the chest floodlights 2 wires for the arm weapon targetting LEDs (these can be daisy chained) So 17 to 20 wires... in each foot I have a 10pin connector to jack into the Diorama base to power everything. 10 wires up each leg is the goal.

Amazingly simple system too. All cam driven bolt locking, Firing pin unlocking and extraction. So in theory you could fire one by hand just by rotating the barrel. Barrels on the Master Models one are not drilled out. So no firing lighting effect for now. Also they aren't very long at 39mm. Defender Mk X twin cannons are 60mm long so I'm hoping thiese smaller Rotary cannons will still have "Stage Presence" and wow factor. Really good customer service as I sent some questions in to them yesterday and had all the answers from them in Poland sitting in my email this morning!

unfortunately they only do the GUA-8 tip and not the whole barrel assembly.

I have too many projects now... 4 carrier deck Valk dioramas, 3 street fight dioramas Found the right motor to spin the vulcans... The GH6122S will spin them at about 1172rpm http://www.gizmoszone.com/shopping/html/pages/612datasheet.htm The GS6321S-10 will do the Radar at about 60rpm Just need to work out the servos or stepper motors for the arm lifting and how that will work and one got the torso twist. For the barrels I found these.... And even though everything in Macross uses caseless there is something about a sea of spent cartridges at the Defenders feet that yells "GET SOME!!" so I found these!

Had some fun last night hollowing out the Defenders Chest cavity of all the mount points and bracing it no longer needs with a dremel. Points to note with a Dremel... 1. clean the bit off often, a build up of melted plastic can cause havoc. Just use a small pair of pliers to run lightly against the bit shaft to shave off the collected material. 2. WATCH THE DREMEL CHUCK!! while you are busy shaving away inside your item, the chuck could be unknowingly up against the model melting it down to slag while its spinning at high speed!! While planning for the motors I looked at the weapon arms to plan out the XV models 35mm Gatling system. I need to be able to fit a 20mm long (max) motor inside that will direct drive the centre shaft of the 6 barrel assembly with enough room left in the arm to fit two bearings per arm to carry the weight and spin the barrels at 1000 rpm and still have room to run a fibre optic line to the top breech area to light up the barrels as they spin past that point to simulate firing. Nothing like a challenge....

This movie looks like my sort of thing and finally a practical use of 3D!

We just had Waitangi day, a National Long Weekend so between Motox, renovations, friends rolling utes on the highway and finding time to plan out the wiring on the Defender I built a new spray booth out of left over scrap. Just needs the light bar bolted on, the filter element inseted and an extractor fan fitted and its done. Thought about using a car Aircon blower... The Filter element holders slide out of the ali channels, the foam is place/sandwiched between the two window panels and and the assembly is slid back into place. Simple and easy to change. The only reason its V Groove is thats the paneling I had laying about from the renos. My oddball 1½ yr old Jackson seems to enjoy crawling inside it when ever my back is turns and hes loose in the Garage of Horrors.

I just bought 4 of those kneeling kits!

I'm making it spin for 360° targeting. Thanks to MechTech I have found the perfect 100rpm output motordrive for it!

Ahahahahaha Mechtech,my wife will hate you now... I just looked on that site and talked with a couple of other EOD operators. A plan has formed!! That site now has a permanent short cut on my desktop.

or a Destroid Spartan from Wave to finish the 4

just watched the animations searching for the Defenders and no, it doesnt move... but... doesnt mean it shouldn't

Working on the Wave Defender and trying to determine how to cram in all the wiring, LEDs, Fibre optics and servos when I noticed the Radar can spin. So the question is... does it actually spin or rotate in search mode like a Marine radar? If it does I'll definitely be adding that feature.

Next question... after priming the Defender and looking at how and where I'm fitting in the servos I noticed the radar can be rotated 360°... so my question is... is the radar MEANT to rotate while in operation/search mode? If so I'm looking at making a drive motor so this spins as well

Expect Bentley pricing