RichiesRC
Hi Everyone,
I'm Richard(Rich) and my daughter is Phoebe
That's right myself and my daughter are building a scale Wall-e from scratch, after she got the old movie for Christmas, she has become totally Wall-e mad and after just a few days she asked me if could build her a Wall-e robot as she thought the plastic models were "boring" and after seeing a few hand made Wall-e's on the internet she asked me if I could build her one. Anyway I didn't jump straight away because you know what kids are like, they can get disinterested in things pretty quickly but not Phoebe(my 9 year old daughter) after building her own cardboard Wall-e and fully equiped Wall-e house with many of his toys and gagets. After several weeks and the DVD just about constently running we have started the build. The first thing to get was the tracks so I could scale him arround them. Picked up a set of Matrics about 170mm long off eBay which arrived about a week ago and after quite a bit of mods to them the carcase is well on its way. Originaly Wall-e was just going to be radio controled as that is my pasoin and I've been playing with everything RC since my early teens.
Phoebe was checking out some youtube videos and came accross D.J Sures video on his Robot Wall-e and said "dad you have to have a look at what this Wall-e can do", so I did and I was sold straight away as some of the other robot hardware out there needs some special programing skills. So we are ready to buy the EZ Robot System but would like to know a couple of things so I know what other hardware we might need.
Will I need a seperate LED controler as we plain on having the front Solar Charge Level panel lit up in rows and each row will be timmed some how to turn off after x amount of time.(Did read that I could hook them up to the digital outputs but there are 7 channels .and will probably need as many of them just to drive servos etc
You see a 9 year old finds things that we might not find that important like us adults,few examples: The solar power front panel has to work and look just like the real Wall-e's one, The play, Record and Stop buttons on the top have to work, He has to have a lazer comming from his head(lazer pionter mounted inside his head), She has even downloaded the sound track to Wall-e's favorite movie and today she started cutting parts of that out of the mp3 to be able to use on Wall-e, She would have loved him to be able to actualy compact trash(that one I've said is just about imposible due to the size of him). And he must be able to pick up things(well try at least) and he must be able to put his hands together(looking forward to that chalange). Looking at micro Linear Actuators but these are quite expensive. His hands will be controled by a thin flex pushrod cable to his thumb and his other fingers will be fixed. The linear actuator for his arm that I'm looking at should be able to spin/twist with the use of a micro servo to give him some wrist movement.
I am normaly a big advocate of the KISS system, even have that painted large on the workshop wall....So much for KISS this time...lol
Ok Wall-e is made from mostly 3mm MDF with his base and a couple of other small parts from 12mm, 12mm because I can screw to it easly(great for mountin servos, motors etc with out having to use small bolts and nuts not to mention how well it paints up. So we are ready for the EZ Robot controler and I tested the 2.4ghz pinhole usb cam today and it works a treat(got that ages ago to mount on my RC models but it's no good as it interfears with my 2.4ghz raido gear)
I will post a couple of pics so you can see what we are up to and to give a bit of look at how we are going with Wall-e.
Looks like my nitro heli is being put on hold for a while untill Wall-e is compleated.
Thanks and G'day from Rich & Phoebe
@RichiesRC - You said, "Will I need a seperate LED controler as we plain on having the front Solar Charge Level panel lit up in rows and each row will be timmed some how to turn off after x amount of time."
If you're interested in trying out something different than LEDs for the Solar Charge Level I came across this YouTube video a while back of an Ultimate Wall-E mod where the guy used the LCD Unit off a 2.4 inch digital photo stand to do the Solar Charge Level animation. Good effect especially if you don't really care about the actual power level of your bot. Check it out, it's pretty slick. cool
@thetechguru yea sorry sometimes I type messages and don't finish them or hit submit for a while at work when I get busy so I never noticed he posted them. Those are cool maybe a good option for wall a concept
Beautiful job Rich
You could also use these for the Solar Charge Level:
LED Bargraph - Passive
LED Bargraph - Active
You can order them in all yellow segments.
Can't wait till you finish this one.
That's just what i want!
Thanks !
But what is the different between the active and passive?
And i can't read if the 7.4 volt is enough or just to much.
You should make the top flip open two little doors like the movie to expose nice solar cells , I imagine you could get 20w or better worth of them on that walle , then he's energy efficient lol
@jstarne1 Hi,
We will be sealing and painting Wall-e much like the way a real car or that high gloss painted furniture is painted using car filler, grey primer and spay putty. Paint will be acrylic and we are looking for a local artist to do the final paint job to make him look old and rusty as I have trouble with that kinda thing. We will be making him all shiny and new looking and the getting the artist finish him off.
Ohh he will have the two opening doors with the solar panels mounted on the under side. Already have those and a small NiMh pack that he now will actually charge, that pack will operate the small red light just below his speaker(it's a light bulb and not a LED) so it will actually drain the battery.
Thanks Rich & Phoebe
@JT @mereyes @jstarne
Thanks heaps guys, Phoebe found that video but we were unable to find how he did it(his site was all in Chinese) and my electronics skills are not up to creating complex circuits(complex to me anyway).
Hey mereyes they are awesome and are exactly what I've been looking for, perfect size, did find some small bar-graph electronic thingies but would have no clue how to wire them up. Will hook it up to the small battery pack that is charged by the solar panels (see above post)
I have asked the eBay seller what the difference between Active and Passive for those battery Indicators and will be ordering one in all yellow and if he can do one that the bottom line can be yellow and change to red when the battery is just about dead.(I think that may have something to do with the "Passive & Active)
Gotta love plug n play.
Rich
@RichiesRC - You're welcome!
Yeah, I know what you mean about the Chinese site. Google Translate didn't help much there... I don't know how he did it either... BUT! If I were going to use a LCD Unit off a digital photo stand I'd keep it simple.
What I mean is that some of those digital photo stands are almost mini-media centers at this point with the ability to do slide shows and play media files. I'd use that functionality if I could without modification and create a series of animated GIF files for the Solar Charge Level animation and play those in an ordered slide show where each animated GIF slide removed one more bar from the Solar Charge Level.
If I couldn't use animated GIFs in a slide show, I'd create a video media file doing the same Solar Charge Level animation and just play that over and over.
That way you (and I) wouldn't need to create complex circuits. We could just utilize the built-in functionality of the digital photo stand itself. Seems you've got a plan already you're happy with, but I just wanted to throw out a way it could possibly be done with the existing digital photo stand functionality.
If you hear back from the eBay seller about what the difference between Active and Passive (that was my first question when I read your post) is for those battery Indicators and how to wire them up, I'd like to know too. Thanks and nice work on your scratch-built Wall-E so far! cool