A K-9 named Flux

I attended a convention with my friend and his R2D2 build. I admit, I was envious of all the fun he was having with his R2 and the crowds. I'm not a big Star Wars guy but I do love Doctor Who. K-9 was exactly the sort of challenge I wanted. Once I decided that I wanted to adapt the Padawan control system to my K-9 I got to work.

The drive system is based on what R2 builder's use for their droids. The frame is part of a discarded bed frame I found on the side of the road.




The body is made of wood. It took a lot of spackle and sanding to smooth this out. I've sanded entire cars that were less work than sanding this thing.





While working on the body I also was working on the drive system.

Color test. It was too dark for my liking.


Neck articulation test. It's a rather large motor but it came out of that van in the background and was totally free.

This begins the filling and sanding, filling and sanding.




K-9 finally has color. Yes, totally wrong color. It was free, quality paint, and I had less than 3 weeks to the convention.


Laying out the electronics. The Arduino Uno takes commands from the PS2 controller. It controls the Mp3 Trigger, Sabretooth, Syren, and Arduino Nano.


Laying out the button box and getting the tail mounted.


Not sure why I saved this very important test for last. I wanted to take the DeLorean to the convention and I designed K-9 to break down to fit in the car. Thankfully the body just barely fits in the passenger seat. The drive system goes in the trunk and the head goes on the package tray behind the seats.


Speak K-9.

Less than a week to go and I'm finally getting around to the little details.



The first time K-9 was mobile and active was in the presence of R2. I think I only rammed into R2 by accident once.


I rammed into myself at least twice here.

Finally at the convention. His head had fallen off by this point and was being held on by a pocket knife jammed in the pipes.



By day 2 the head was fixed and he was hamming it up in his 11th Doctor cosplay.





Kids loved him, adults loved him, and I loved showing him off. Unfortunately day 2 blew his already underpowered speaker system. By Pensacon I expect to have a better sound system, working video viewer, proper paint color, and a working laser nose.

I absolutely love your build, did you use the pep files as a basis to build your frame, or did you make your own measurements?

Thank you. I pulled the plans from here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Podpadstudios-K9-Dr-Who/ and then just transferred the measurements to some brown painter's masking paper I had leftover.

I went to the Doctor Who "Deep Breath" showing at a local theater and my friend convinced me to bring K9. The manager had no objections. He was a hit but unfortunately I didn't get a single photo. There was a line of people up the steps waiting to get photos with him so I was taking photos for them. I was going to leave him on the main floor while I watched the movie but the guys in the row next to me begged for me to bring him up. I obliged and carried his heavy butt up to the second level. He watched the movie with the 11th, Captain Jack, and the Master. I enjoyed myself but I hated that his sound is still broken. I have an amp ordered but it's on the slow boat from China. On the upside, last night I watched an episode with the 4th and K9 said "I am not programmed to bark." It's perfect since everyone asks me if he barks. I captured the audio and filtered it. If anyone knows of other K9 quips I'd appreciate a heads up. I have "Your silliness is noted" and "You are a very stupid machine" to insult R2D2s. I'm going to start watching the Sarah Jane Adventures to see if I can get a couple of good insults from when he and Mr Smith are bickering.

I accidentally bashed him into the car as I was putting him away and took a decent sized chip off his back. Also, on the way out of the theater a crack in the sidewalk jolted him hard enough to knock his door off where he lost the 9. I'm taking this as a sign that I should change his color to the proper darker blue-gray metallic. So you'll see some photos him broken down to prep for new paint soon. I also need to work out the laser nose and balance him properly. On a smooth floor he loses traction because he's front heavy. I'm not sure I want him front wheel drive. Dennis, the owner of this work in progress K9, didn't like his front wheel drive. Ignore K9's long neck in this photo. I had to jam a pocket knife in the tube to keep his head from falling off. My glue was old and didn't bond properly.

I'm building a new circuit tray for K9. The old one didn't have room for the new amp. I have it laid out like I want it. Now I have to remove everything to get that protective film off. Then I can start to route the wires. I'm going to try to do it neatly but I'm terrible at routing wires. K9 was just invited to attend a fan expo next month so I've got to get cracking on getting him patched, painted, and reassembled. I don't think I'm going to get the laser nose working before then. He'll be easy prey for R2 again.

K9 was invited to attend a local Pop Expo next month. I've got a lot of work to get him back together and functioning inside of a month. The glue I originally used was just terrible. I've glued all his seams with Gorilla glue. It's a lot stronger and I think will work out well. I've filled and sanded all the issues that were bothering me on the body and I'm rebuilding the keypad.




I glued in a magnet that I'm covering with a thin layer of putty. I'll be able to stick things to him like a 3d printed celery or a Star Trek commbadge.

Looking forward to K9 Mark 2

Nice work on the original, I'm always quite envious of those that understand electronics/RC etc, so well done!

I finally was able to test K-9's new paint. It turned out better than I expected. I really like it.



I also put the circle thing on his tail. I love the circle thing so I had to have it. I found a perfect metal circle in a home improvement store. Since I used a metal core on the original tail I was able to weld it right on. After some grinding I hit it with a gloss black.




I'm most proud of that tail. It's all scratch built using a steel rod, series of aluminum tubes that are progressively smaller, and a hobby bracket. Now that it has the circle I want I'm very happy with it.

Busy day today. My electronics for the blank areas of the keypad came in late in the day so I didn't unpack them. I got 4 single red hex segment LEDs. I'd like to put K 9 on one side. I have no idea what to put on the other side. I don't want K9 K9 but I don't think I should put M2 since he's not actually a replica of a screen prop...







I love that color. It's Dupli-color light blue metallic. B4dw0lf from the Whoprops forum used it on his K9. I was also able to paint the head but the pictures turned out lousy since I had sanding dust on the lense. I'm hoping to finish the rebuild of the electronics and base. It looks so cool I wouldn't mind driving it without the K9 body wrapped around it.

This is just AWESOME
Do you know about how much you spent on him to this day?

Thank you. I tried to keep a tally of everything but I'm not that organized. I'd say Mark 1 rolled to life for under 500 dollars. The body was less than 50 bucks worth of material and I already had the tools I needed. The electronics have been the most expensive parts. With the upgrades I think I'm around 600 to 700 dollars for Mark 2.

Wow! Quite a lot...
I guess loads of mechanics and lights are involved ^^
What kind of power source did you use?

Yeah, I didn't realize it got that expensive. All the parts were spread out over months so I never noticed how much I was actually spending. It's all worth it though. At Paracon a young lady and her mother came up to see the robot dog. The daughter was mentally handicapped but K9 put the biggest smile on her face. She petted him a lot. They came back around a second time and the mom pulled me aside. She said that her daughter rarely speaks but she asked to see the robot dog again. They came back a few more times and each time the mom looked like she was going to cry. Heck, even I was getting teary eyed at how much the young lady was smiling at K9. There's no way to put a price on something like that.

Currently K-9 uses 1 12v 7Ah battery. I'm hooking a second battery up in parallel so I can get more runtime and to help balance the weight. The mechanics aren't too bad. I use exactly what an R2 droid uses but in a more compact shell. 2 scooter motors and wheels, a sabretooth 2x12 speed controller, a syren10 for the head movement, arduino uno control board, nano to break out the servos, ps2 controller, and an mp3 trigger for the sound. Astromech has a topic dedicated to this sort of control system with all the wiring and specs you could want.

I really love these things from Adafruit. They are super bright and really hard to photograph. I'm still not sure what I want in the right window. K9 will be in the left. People have suggested DW or 42. I'm leaning toward 42 since it's a nod toward Douglas Adams for his work with Hitchhiker's Guide and the fact that he wrote one of my favorite K9 episodes. I'm just not sure if anyone is going to understand or they'll wonder why he says "K9 42"



I knew it was a matter of time before I made a mistake. At least it was here and not on the main body. I tripped over my engine lift when I was painting. Instead of letting off the spray nozzle I pressed it harder and caused a bad run.


I took a semi-decent photo of his head.


These are nice. Mom likes to buy bags of junk at thrift stores. When I was visiting today she showed me a study plastic tube and asked if I could use them. They were perfect to protect the wiring in between the head and body. She gave me a handful of them.


It's back to work tomorrow so I won't be able to paint the main body for awhile. Hopefully that'll push me to install the hex segments and finish the drive frame.

The keypad looks terrible when it's zoomed in on like this. I'm going to fill in around the hex segments with some sort of black material. I'm just not exactly sure what I want to use yet.

I've finally finished the drive system upgrade. I just have to wire up the auxiliary lights to their switch and it will be 100% complete. As it stands right now it can drive, talk, and...well, drive and talk.



And yes, I installed the cigarette lighter just for this. He's named Flux for a reason.

hehe. Flux capacitor. cool.

Thanks. I wired up the hex segments. I settled on the 42.



K-9's head is ready for the eye plate which I still have to make. The deadline is 2 weeks out and I still have some major components to figure out.

I'm finally into the home stretch. I've got two weeks to button up any issues that creepy up during final assembly.




Finally, he's a dog shape again.


I still want to build a new eye plate and probably a new set of LED eyes. The rear of the keypad keeps popping up so I've got to come up with a way to pin it down. The laser nose still isn't installed or operational. The eye stalk sucker is still hanging from a shelf in my room. I've got to finalize what speakers I'm going to install and where I'm going to install them. The side door shuts really tightly to the body. I've got a piece of stainless that I use to pop the door open. I might need to look into one of those magnetic drawer poppers instead of the clasp. The digital picture frame in his side needs work. It's too small for the opening but I'm thinking I can make it look like a widescreen for now.

Happy Halloween from the fez-tive K-9 and Tom "Baker" Servo.



K-9's in my workshop now. I only have a few details left. I have to build a new eye plate with the sensor probe. Work out a better speaker placement so I can use the current space for my laser nose. I've worked out a way to do an extending laser with up and down movement so I can aim it. I just have to work out the programming now. I really considered making him shoot silly string but some conventions might get mad and mom pointed out that it might look like he's shooting snot. I'd rather not have my K-9 do something that gross.

I took him to my mom's church for their kid's Halloween party. I figured a bunch of little kids all hyped up on sugar would be a good place to see if there were any weak links left. A little lion tried to ride K-9 like a horse. One child tried to push his head down pretty hard. I have a heavy wiper motor for movement and steel neck pipe so it wasn't going to budge. Nothing broke at all. The best news is that even on their slick floor I never had an issue with K-9's traction. The new layout for his batteries really helped with his balance.

I'd like to ask other K-9 builders about their speaker placement. Where did you put your speakers and was K-9 hard to hear? I still have a little trouble hearing him when things get loud.