Something cool...

  So, finally got one of the new servos hooked up with the Arduino and the piece I made the other night.  This will give a small idea of what I am hoping to accomplish.  Imagine 12 of these in a circle all facing inward to create almost an insect like mouth.  At the 30 second mark in the video, I put the servo into "anger" mode.  All 12 servos would be doing this at the same time.  At the 60 second mark is a test mode (which also does the anger mode).

  Anyway, here it is.  Notice the quarter in the shot to help with the scale...

Mouth mandible

  This is a new version (but I think the first I am sharing) of the mouth mandible.  There will be approximately 12 of these for the mouth unit on the costume.  The quarter should give some sense of scale.  I will be hooking this one up to a servo either tomorrow or this weekend to see if I like the look and the movement.  If so, then I will actually begin making the first real pieces for the outfit.

  Also I need to some paint tests to make sure I can make the piece look metallic.  There are some better paints out there that work pretty nicely on plastics so I will give it a try.

The Arduino version of the mouth servo controller is done

I got up extra early this morning (not by choice, I'm too used to getting up early for work) and decided to wrap up things with the Arduino and the program for running the mouth servos.  I'm glad I made the switch to the Arduino if for no other reason then to be able to program in C instead of a machine language.  It made things go very quickly this morning.

Anyway, here is a new video I shot.  Nothing terribly interesting but you can see the Oscilloscope is hooked up to one of the servo outputs so you can see the PWM (the line on the Oscilloscope that keeps moving).  The width of the PWM corresponds to the position of a servo.  So when you see that change rapidly, that means the servo would move rapidly.

Also in this video, you will see me activate the "test" mode.  This is designed to allow me to check if all the servos are functioning properly.  The PWM will slowly grow and shrink and then rapidly change.  This is a check for the servos to see if they can move through the full range.

Some update notes

Slowly things are beginning to fall into place.  The biggest problem I had was lacking the resources and parts needed for what I wanted to accomplish.  Things have changed and the project is moving ahead again.

On the servo front.  A package arrived today with 15 servos.  These will be the servos I will use in the mouth of the headpiece.  I had also purchased connectors for these servos.  These connectors will allow me to easily connect the servos to the mask so that they can be removed easily when they burn out.

Unfortunately the spacing on the connectors was incorrect.  The servo uses a pitch (spacing between the pins) of 1.25mm and the headers (the part they plug into) uses a spacing of 1.5mm.  The good news is that I found a supplier on EBay that offers the parts for a much cheaper rate.  So I put that order in tonight.

I also picked up a new Dremel (the old one stays in the garage) along with some accessories and a stand to make it easier to use the flexible shaft attachment.  The Dremel is for a lot of things but the biggest help will be in forming some of the plastic pieces as well as drilling on the circuit boards.  I started playing around with it to work on a final version of the mandibles that will be part of the face mask.

I also received the Nickle Chromium wire that will be used in the smoke unit.  Unfortunately I think it is a bit too heavy and requires too much voltage to heat up.  I am going to do a bit more research and see if a thinner gauge wire can be heated enough by lower voltage.  I may even draw out some of the wire I have to test it.

Finally, I am starting to hit the books again to make sure I have some of my electronic circuit design correct.  I picked up a few more books to help me.

Artificial smoke

So I am looking into doing some artificial smoke to simulate mini steam engines.  After researching some of the sights for model trains I think I've found something worth experimenting in.

I am getting some nickle chromium wire.  This will be used to heat small amounts of glycerin which produce a white smoke.  The design will be a similar design to what they use for model trains that produce fake steam.  The smoke is non-toxic and has no unpleasant odors.  I don't need a lot but enough to make the effect obvious.

It's alive!

So...

New job, been busy, blah...  blah....  blah....   Back to the project.

For starters, I decided to switch Arduino boards to drive the electronics in the project.  In the long run, they really aren't any more expensive than just using the micro controllers but they do cut down on the amount of work necessary to get them working.

As an example, it took me less than an hour to write the main part of the program that will control the mouth of the costume.  This video shows the Arduino board hooked up to some LEDs as well as an Oscilloscope.  The LEDs are taking the place of the servos (I have 15 coming in the mail).  If you look carefully, you might see the brightness of the LEDs changing.  Also, the oscilloscope shows the signal generated.  Once again, this program is designed to cause random twitching of mandibles that are part of the face of the costume.

Package from Amazon

Screws arrived and as expected they were very small but still a touch too big.  Luckily, I was able to with just a minimal amount of filing to get them to fit.  So this weekend I hope to actually create a prototype mandible and see if everything looks right.