Emy

Emy

Sunday 28 March 2010

R6: All lit up




Posted by PicasaThe head is now starting to look much better, more finished. Most of the head lighting is in although I still have the radar eye lense to sort out. The logic display has also been given a bit of attention and a new mesh added infront of the larger LED's. I have done the same on the rear display and when lit up looks much more authentic. Eventually I will get around to making a much finer mesh and out of metal.
I had an attempt at a holo projector. It is OK but I think I may have to bite the bullet and buy some resin ones for a better look. The top of the head has now got a small vent which will help with cooling  but also works together with the rasing aerial. I still need to do a fair bit of work with the top of the head.
Drive electronics.
I have been giving some consideration to changing the drive system from 12v to 24v. The 12v system works very well on smooth surfaces and is more than powerful enough, however, all I need to do is encounter a small bump and there is not enough power to overcome it.
If I move to 24v on the main motors then I will have enough torque but there are trade off's to be made
1.I will have to add more batteries and split my battery power so I can still provide the 12v system with correct voltage.
2. I am worried that the new added torque will pull the feet apart. They are coping well with the 12v feed and only being made out of wood I am not sure they can cope with more. It will be a major undertaking to have to fully rebuild the feet in metal.
3. I could try and make the whole build lighter, to gain more power, although I am not sure how.
4. I could leave everything as it is and only run on flat smooth surfaces.
Projector in the head.
I played around with the projector idea projecting through the main radar eye. I tried a couple of small projectors, borrowed, with interesting results.
The micro Pico style was very easy to fit and could be angled down to project straight onto the wall. I was thinking about getting one of these as they can be picked up on line for as low as £100. The only major issue with it as a projector is that you can not see the projected image, which kind of defeats the objective. The image is so dim that any day light, or light at, all washes out the image to the point of invisibility. It would be fine in  a darkened room but how often do you run a heavy Droid in the dark.
The small Acer k10 projector was much better and certain massively brighter than the first. It was a fair bit bigger but still small enough to fit in the head with an isolation bracket supporting it. The only down side was that it would not directly run on batteries however when connected up to an inverter running from the 12v source worked ok, the downside being it sucked the batteries dry very quickly. If I was to fit one of these I would need to rethink the power system maybe adding a larger battery just for the projector. 
The third projector was an old Benq projector I have. Being full size but still just small enough to fit in the head it worked brilliantly being very bright and projecting a massive image in full daylight. 
Down side was that it needs 240v and it gets hot, so added cooling would be needed and plugging in. 
I was also concerned with the last projector being vulnerable to damage when the R6  moves around, maybe I would shake the projector to pieces and mess the lamp up. The first two run on LED technology so it is not so much of a  problem.
I think I need to play around with the projector idea a bit more before I invest in anything.

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