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Motorized 1/72 VF-1 Ranger and Launch Arm Completed


arbit

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On 2/21/2018 at 8:47 AM, Valkyrie addict said:

WOW!!! All this is amazing!!!

Nice attention to detail (blinking light on the FP) Loving everything!!

Thanks. It's some tender loving care for our valk. Is there a more awesome mecha design ever????? 

On 2/21/2018 at 3:17 PM, ScrambledValkyrie said:

@arbit, I just found this thread, and think your work here is really impressive. Reminds me of when I put LEDs in the light bar of a 1/24 model police car as a kid back in the '80s, but this is way cooler. I'll be looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

Glad you guys like it so far. Definitely, it's the adult in me pleasing the kid in me.

You don't want to see the valk I built in the 80s :p. That one got rage smashed :blink:.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've mounted the motor and limit switches and set up the motor driver IC with the Trinket. It is working (sometimes), and it is nice to have a solid package finally after weeks of work.

But I have had so may different problems, I am not sure what the issue is. The main problem is that the limit switches seem to bounce: they work fine, then suddenly decide that they don't want to work and get stuck in a loop like someone banging their head against the wall. I hope there will be a solution before I destroy anything permanently.

Edit: Problem solved. Turns out I was using a wrong pin:vava:.

So here are some learning points:

- Don't trust the breadboard. The connections are not clean enough for fine work, especially when your wimpy styrene model is at risk. Solder everything before running gears and motors. It is the only way to be sure your code is good and you are sending a clean signal.

- Super glue does not seem great around wires. Epoxy is better, but let it dry and fully cure before running anything.

- I accidentally epoxied the limit switch wires slightly touching the motor, and I am afraid the heat from the plastic casing of the motor will effect the wiring. But I am no electrician so I don't know if a little heat will effect the electric flow.

- Make sure all the pin connections are correct. And double check. That was my most common silly mistake.

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Edited by arbit
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18 hours ago, arbit said:

I've mounted the motor and limit switches and set up the motor driver IC with the Trinket. It is working (sometimes), and it is nice to have a solid package finally after weeks of work.

But it is very finicky. I have had to resuscitate it so many times, with so may different problems that I am not sure what the issue is. The main problem is that the limit switches seem to bounce: they work fine, then suddenly decide that they don't want to work and get stuck in a loop like someone banging their head against the wall.  Another problem is the angle that the gear is hitting the switches has to be just right. 

The motorized wings definitely will not have a long life span, unless I figure out what is wrong. I think I need to fix something with my delays in the coding of the Arduino sketch, so I hope there will be a solution before I destroy anything permanently.

So here are some learning points:

- Don't trust the breadboard. The connections are not clean enough for fine work, especially when your wimpy styrene model is at risk. Solder everything before running gears and motors. It is the only way to be sure your code is good and you are sending a clean signal.

- Super glue does not seem great around wires. Epoxy is better, but let it dry and fully cure before running anything.

- I accidentally epoxied the limit switch wires slightly touching the motor, and I am afraid the heat from the plastic casing of the motor will effect the wiring. But I am no electrician so I don't know if a little heat will effect the electric flow.

- These limit switches are not reliable. They are just springs. We need a better engineered switch at this size for our models. I think this limitation is why we don't see a lot of projects like this.  

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Awesome - so you are going with the arduino board now? This should make things much easier.

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I seem to have solved the problem with the limit switches. I've actually seen this problem before: On a 5v LiPo the Arduino boards don't handle motors very well. But when I switch to USB power from my laptop or a 9v battery, the motor works fine and pulls the wings with no problem. Edit:  I also did not follow directions and used a wrong pin on the IC. Good thing I didn't kill it. Smooth as butter now.

Edited by arbit
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I originally black coated the wings so the leds dont go through the plastic. But it was not enough, if you review earlier images of the wings you can see. I ended up making a paint sandwhich of primer, metallic, then white gray to fully occlude the leds. Metallic was only necessary around the area of light seepage.

I also thought I had balanced the resistors on the LEDs, but due to some properties of parallel resistors which I don't understand, I ended up with weaker  lights on one wing. I can balance this a bit later in the Arduino by dimming the other wing. It's a bummer, but I am very lucky to get this far anyway. You don't want to burn those out by mistake.

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Edit: Do not do this. I removed the resistors to outside the valk because of wing movement problems.

Edited by arbit
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I got Aber PE hinges to try out. These little guys are nearly impossible to work with. But I think I got it on pretty strong with a needle drop of epoxy to hold, then after it cures, more generous amounts around the edges.

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The Ranger!

Because I can't afford the Kids Logic Cockpit Speaker. 

Those are the Jasmine PE parts for the screen.

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Edited by arbit
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Working on the ARMD base. I'm using a black LED display box from ebay, which I retrofit for my electronics (20cm x 10cm), and the top is just styrene sheet and rods.

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Edited by arbit
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22 minutes ago, NZEOD said:

Excellent work dude.

This one is for you NZEOD. You taught me everything I know about this stuff. I'm just the sous chef.

Best wishes for your daughter.

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No that's my kids' 1/44 Bandai. I refuse to do a Falcon until they make a 1/72 with opening interior like the one I grew up with. Can it be so hard?

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51 minutes ago, arbit said:

No that's my kids' 1/44 Bandai. I refuse to do a Falcon until they make a 1/72 with opening interior like the one I grew up with. Can it be so hard?

to get AN interior into her? No, shouldn't be that hard.

 

To get an interior that looks right/good? well...

The various Falcons [there were several individual models] all suffer from "Jupiter 2 Syndrome" [like the eponymous ship form Lost in Space, the interior sets wouldn't quite fit in the presented exterior dimensions]

so you run into a few issues of things not just looking, but really being too small by proportion... but that's only a problem if you're a strict adherent to the cannon dimensions, I suppose.

 

 

Some folks [like the ones at [QMx] have gone to great lengths to make an interior not only fit, but also look spectacular [I'll leave it to the interested parties to compare this interior to the Cutaways book]:

an in 1/80 she'd be pretty darn close to 1/72

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Note that the launch arm is not yet glued together. I have 17 wires that will run from the valk through the launch arm down the 5mm copper tube. There is plenty of space, but wires dont travel at right angles. So permanently gluing the claws is a last step. 

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3 hours ago, arbit said:

Test fit!5ab27e39f1db9_2018-03-2119_22_15.thumb.jpg.b44de3d1e9661c171249a40a21698331.jpg

That's Really Nice! this build is continually inspiring.

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Your son likes it? In that case I am really proud of myself. How old is he?

My oldest is 13 and he seems to like it too. Big DYRL and Macross II fan.

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3 hours ago, NZEOD said:

where did the arm come from?

A lot of greeblies on the Arm are from the Hasegawa landing gears.

The heavy base Arm is entirely bashed from the Bandai 1/72 Valk, which is great for spare parts, if for nothing else. 

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Edited by arbit
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I removed the resistors off the wings and moved them outside the valk... Causing wing movement problems.

Lighting the wings with movement has been the most difficult part of this whole thing.

Almost there. But no guarantees.

(Wiring the wings story: I needed to parallel two white 0402 SMDs and a blue and a red on each wing to pull this off.  Can't do series because the Arduino gives out 5v, which is not enough for 3x LEDs. The blue and the whites have the same forward voltage, so no problem there, you calculate the resistor value for three leds. BUT the reds and the whites do not have the same forward voltage. You are not supposed to parallel non-like voltage leds, but I must... To do this, I burned about three sets of trial leds.  I kept increasing resistor value until I realized that you have to give all three leds the same resistor as if you have the red alone, otherwise it will suck everything up and burn out. Tested successfuly for an hour.)

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Edited by arbit
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The wing led wires are anchored with enough leeway for movement.

All the wires collect near the cockpit area and go straight up the hatch, above the motor. Keeping gears completely clear for movement.

I will test for a few days before attaching.

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Edited by arbit
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