Old and new projects

Buggy was not so good, it works, but when motor warms up it heats the plastic worm gear so much that it loses traction with motor spindle.

Monster buggy is still on-going, steering is really good, motor would not drive it, tyres were not balanced enough. Now using inner mould so tyres are uniform wall thickness of 2 mm, that works well. I've figured a better way of mounting gears to rods. Expect to get it fully working soon.

New project: Rock tumbler / polisher. My grand daughter collects small rocks on all walks, she would like to polish them, but rock polishers are very expensive, a cheap one costs £75, a decent one costs £115. So I've 3D printed 1:

It's been a learning experience. No fancy electronics, Maplin £12 power supply straight onto motor.

It makes a racket, so I created a plywood box, covered inside and out with carpet tiles. That deadens it enough.Photo shown is an old design, it was a smaller motor running at 3 Volts, it got too hot and spindle lost traction on gear (same as models!), so it now has a bigger motor running at 9 Volts. So far been continuously running for 3 hours.

But it needs run solidly for a week for each stage of the polishing, so it might work, it might not, time will tell. Once it's fully running then my grand daughter gets to take it home and I'll publish.

New project: My Dad wants me to put an electric motor on his old favourite 66 year old bicycle. It's a bit high geared for him these days, so he uses a different bike to do his standard 100 miles a week. But then he is 82, so adding a motor to give him a hand is perfectly acceptable.

Radio Control 9

Long saga, buggies done:







State the obvious, 4 sequences of 4 aspects.
1st aspect front right, 2nd aspect front left, 3rd aspect rear right, 4th aspect rear left.
Each sequence shows original real car then photos of 2 models underneath.
The engine has separated from body on the model with standard Fly Sky receiver / transmitter controlled model. I'll have to re-glue that.
I'm a bit disappointed in the model quality, but they will have to do.

I'll publish the monster buggy when it's complete.
But that will have to wait as my printer is out of action, every 2 years the Arduino 2560 fails, this has happened twice and in the same very weird way, the ADCs seem to lose accuracy, the hot end appears ok at room temperature but up at temperatures needed (250 degrees C) it is actually much lower temperature. I've ordered a couple of replacements, awaiting arrival from China.

Radio Control 8

Beach buggy bodies ok, still brown over spray to do.
Monster chassis with wheels in front.

Radio Control 7

Decided to cut it short, yes I'll create the bodies and they will be accurate, but the main purpose is to test usability of my ESP8266 RC module against standard RC kit.

Twin rolling chassis, yellow tape is my module, brown tape is standard FlySky receiver.

Left is standard ESC and all wiring including switch, charge sockets, connectors to batteries.
Right is my module with piggy backed ESP8266-03 module.

Same on left, right is FlySky 4 channel receiver.

The compare very well in operation, I think my module is good enough.
Now to finish off, got 2 bodies printed, put together and rubbed down. Got Airbrush and paints on order. Bodies clip on well.
Whilst awaiting painting gear, I may well get on with monster mod, both Grand Children are eagerly awaiting their buggies with monster truck wheels, should then work on lawn.
Then I'll package it all up and publish on Thingiverse.
Not sure how Thingiverse will the whole design with module, PCB etc. Should be interesting.

Radio Control 6

Ok, so I was wrong, my dad said it looked too long and thin, searched web, the drawing I was using for the dimensions was wrong, whole front end was wrong. so I redesigned, it's different and fully useable :-)

Design from a long time ago, engine mounted cross wise, 3 stage gearbox, rear battery pack containing 5 off AAA batteries, front axle wrongly positioned. OpenSCAD exported image.

New design, engine mounted where it would be on a VW Beetle, 10:1 small worm drive gearbox, Li-Po batteries built into clip on command module, front axle correctly positioned, all wheels correctly placed. OpenSCAD exported image.

The actual model, mostly in coffee coloured PLA, original car chassis was painted in similar tan colour. wheels in white colour PLA and sprayed silver. Dimensions are correct, speed is scale 70 mph like original, I also just printed the a second set of parts and made the PCB for my controller, with luck have that assembled tomorrow.

I have body designed, have to print in 2 parts, working upon support to get the weird shape to print, NOT looking too good yet:

Radio Control 5

Rolling chassis is only perfect, but will have to do:

Wheels are perfect in functionality and look (they look just like original buggy), front wheels and steering are nice and loose with no wobble, motor and gearbox are spot on, full speed range from very low to reasonable (but not stupidly fast) top range, steering range is as good as real thing, motor stays cool. I am pretty chuffed.

On with body, maybe after I turn it into monster truck with big pneumatic tyres, or a standard VW beetle, maybe publish with a number of choices :-)

I have coffee, silver and yellow filament coming next week, so I'll create a couple in correct colours, keep 1 as above and fit my controller to the other, then I can test my controller properly :-)

Radio Control 4

It works!!!!!!

Ok, it's just a rolling chassis, had to fit slightly more powerful motor, motor needs better mounting, steering is not particularly good, wheels are not good, but it's getting there, I can drive it around, speed range is nice.