Have only been here as a member for a day now and quickly received great info from another member building an r2 from a Walmart r2 he purchased. A bit of background to my project... Always wanted an R2 since seeing the first Star Wars in 1977. Shows my age..lol Nevertheless, hasbro came out with the interactive R2 quite some time ago and I immediately scooped one up. While he could do just about everything I wanted in a robot, he isn't quite the size that I wanted and a few more bells and whistles would be nice but not completely necessary. That said I began this past summer building my own R2 from mixture of files I put together provided by the astromach building group and a pepakura group I belong to. I decided to build a 2:3 scale version because in all honesty I don't believe Lucas would've had r2 be 40+ inches had he not needed a person to be inside to control him back in the day. Plus, I just don't want one that big. So mine will be about 36" when its all done. Initial plan was to build him light weight using styrene, hdu signfoam, card stock paper for the details using pepakura,and fiberglass. Thought behind this was to do as light as possible so that I could use the insides of an interactive r2 to bring him to life and secondly... His weight would not be a safety issue should he run into something or someone. That said... The newer interactive r2 comes with a controller, many functions and has voice commands like my version all for $140.00. To build using the ezrobot that already places me well above the cost of the toys r us one. So what benefits would come from ezrobot over using the insides of an already fabricated r2?
Other robots from Synthiam community
Jim's Armadeus Mk. 12
Ezang's My New Talking Mr. Head Robot
So any thoughts on motors?
How much room do you have in the leg above the foot ? Could you mount the motor there and get a timing belt to a wheel below. The CG shouldn't be too bad. I am not thrilled with this idea but the belts and pulleys are pretty cheap and its an easy way to go. The pod on the foot would help hide the mechanism.
Ron R
Thanks for the suggestion but I actually have less space there unless I place it on the other side of the leg for all to see lol. Which if I didn't already have those pieces already built ready to assemble, it might've been kinda cool to somehow incorporate an actual working piece on the outside.
Quite the conundrum I know. Probably should have thought about this prior to making my battery boxes for the legs. However, keeping to the actual scale they're the size they should be.
I'm wondering if I could get a big enough motor with a 90 degree shaft on it. That seems like the best solution provided the space I have. But again depth, length and height are still needing to be considered even then. I figure if I have to go with a caster on the back portion of the foot and the motorized wheel on the front instead of just one large wheel that would be fine. Wheel size isn't as big of a deal as the motor at the moment.
I don't know if anyone has used these with EZ-B yet, or if they have the power you need for the weight, but I bookmarked this site when another discussion here talked about fitting wheels into a tight space: http://www.creative-robotics.com/About-HUBee-Wheels
Alan
Alright... I think I found a motor that'll work and isn't going to kill the bank.
http://www.monsterscooterparts.com/100-watt-motor-razor-e90.html?gclid=CKG94sLG7skCFU0XHwodHhoNCg
This is probably a little more than needed, but it's the right size for placement and I'm thinking too much would be better than too little..if I don't run it to its full potential is there an issue with that? Also, I'm thinking just running this directly into the wheel itself vs belt driving or similar. Only thing I'm concerned about doing that is, is the shaft going to be strong enough to handle that weight or will it bend?
Everything else I found that would possibly fit, were a lot of pancake motors that were way expensive. I found one of those for the razor scooters as well, but it was 200 watts and just slightly bigger than actually needed so I would have to mod what I have.
A motor I was given. Check it out on the internet. US made. I have no clue if they are still available. Maybe modify the pod if the motor is big enough to do the job.
Ron R
That looks about the right size Ron. Where did you pick that up? And the 90 degree is sweet.
Came across this place while looking at motors yet again.... These all seem relatively decently sized and the cost isn't too overwhelming not to mention they should all work with the ezb. On the flip side... I don't know what i'm looking for still..lol
https://www.servocity.com/html/motors___accessories.html