Marksman-H combat remote (floating)

mortifactor said:
I'm interested to see how this turns out, I wanna try magnetic levitation for some sculpture display but thought it would never work haha

Is there anyway to fluctuate the power a little so the training remote bobs up and down a little?
Click to expand...

Wikipedia says that making a stable levitation system with passive components is impossible, (here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_levitation) I've seen people attempting to do just that, but it's doomed to fail. However, with a little bit of electronics and a feedback loop, you can totally do magnetic levitation. And while "bobbing" would be failry easy to implement when you build the levitation module, I haven't seen one that actually supports that. Some levitation modules supports rotation, but I don't think the one I ordered does.

Personally I don't actually want it to bob, I think it would be annoying.
 
Omg I have one of those levitation things... i must make this !!

You mentioned needing chrome rims... what are the rims ? (Link pls)
 
shpider said:
Omg I have one of those levitation things... i must make this !!

You mentioned needing chrome rims... what are the rims ? (Link pls)
Click to expand...

The rims are from a 1:25 truck model, like "AMT Midnight Express". I found just the chrome parts on ebay for ~$20.
There are a number of threads here already that details where all the parts come from, I think my favorite is this one: http://www.therpf.com/f10/revisiting-training-remote-42132/
 
Got the second half printed:

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If I was a Fraggle, I'd totally eat the support structures:

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Hmm, it seems I have a problem. The glue I was intending to use (Testors Plastic Cement) just doesn't work on resin prints. :( Any recommendations? Ideally I'd want a space-filling, sandable glue that doesn't shrink or expand too much. I have a sneaky suspicion that the answer is epoxy, even if it's a pain to sand, but maybe someone else has a better idea?

Also, I'm fairly new to model making, and I'm wondering what the best way to paint this thing is. I'm considering buying an air-brush, but I've never used one before and I'm not sure if it's the right way to go or not. Some of the painting is definitely going to be done with a brush, and I could probably do the base coat(s) with a spray can. Color choices are a lot more limited with spray cans though.
 
I got the floating platform today, which is pretty cool, but also something of a problem. The top magnet isn't completely level, and when I put something tall on it, it leans more. Since the platform would be at the bottom of the remote, the whole thing would be somewhat top-heavy and thus lean a fair amount, and I'm not sure there is anything I can do about it. I'm going to have to experiment a bit to see if I can work around it, or I'm going to have to think of a plan B.
 
What about spot/glazing putty for filling small details? It's sandable and paintable and used heavily with resin.

Also, I picked up an airbrush kit on Craigslist fairly cheap and it's done wonders for paint options - especially small parts.


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There's a little bit of info about the training remote @ rebeldroids.net so I was inspired to take a look and stumbled across your files. I can't ever leave well enough alone, so I was playing with them a bit (ok, a lot).

I was curious how you arrived at some of the dimensions? Frank Cerny's plans for example, specify .04" styrene for the patches, which is ~1mm, and your patches stick out about 1/2mm. Not a big deal, but just curious. From the reference photos I've seen I'm not sure it's as thick as 1mm, but I'm not sure how to measure that thickness from the photos.

Anyway, thanks for the great job. I'll probably try to print more parts individually, and, of course tweak things, 'cause I can't ever seem to just print stuff without touching it, but great work! I put the bits in Sketchup to start - work in progress, but attached.

Wow, those take an amazing amount of time to render in OpenScad!
 

Attachments

  • Remote Training Droid (Tweaked and Start).zip
    5.3 MB · Views: 181
FWIW, the things I was toying with modifying in the sketchup file are below. These are just in case you're curious, your stuff is brilliant, so this is more me tinkering than any criticizing.
  • The U hooks in the reference photos look like the inner bump is always on the same side, so I mirrored it instead of rotating.
    (Actually I was wondering if there's a bump on the other side I can't see in the photos - this part looks a lot like a tow bar clevis thing, like it might snap to another part in the original model kit, so pegs on both sides would make sense)
  • The U hooks have some voids in them (at least in my rendering) - very tiny. They're still closed so it probably doesn't matter, but I connected them.
  • The tank treads on top alternate their orientation in the prop photo - Eg: the fat tabs point to the fat ones of the part 90 degrees away (If you rotated them together they would not connect)
  • Added hashes across the treads where the links connect. Your scad treads "fit perfectly", so there's no line between the teeth (or whatever they're called) in the vertical direction.
  • The photos had mold marks on some of the tank wheels on the half circles, so I toyed with adding them. Not even sure they'll print.
  • Rerendered some parts with fewer polygons than the defaults you'd uploaded in the SCAD. Eg: the tank hatches were serious overkill and hard to play with (unless maybe you have an AMAZING printer! :)
  • The bars in the circles on the top tank hatches (lid?) (kinda like flathead screw hole) look to me that they're raised in the photos, not indented. Really hard to tell for sure, I could be wrong, but raised made sense to me.
  • There's a "fin" on the top tank hatches too that looks to be taller in the photos, so I stretched that.
  • Moved one of the lids/tank hatches a off of the tread. I intend to print some of these individually so didn't want them on top of each other (though these are on top, so I probably won't separate them from the hemisphere)
  • The equatorial clip (clamp?) things look like there's a small rim on the edge - probably too small to even print, but I added something to represent that.

Detail on your commander's hatch is really cool :)

A few more things I want to look at:
  • The patches look to me (as I mentioned earlier) like they might be too "low" in the model. I'm not sure though. A few other parts also look like they don't come out enough.
  • I thought I was done "tweaking", but the curve &/or exposure of the top tank hatch/lid bugs me comparing to the photos. Not sure what to do though.
  • Add voids to the hemisphere to mount the parts I want to print separately. That should be a fun task.
  • That includes the equatorial patches. They'd print OK as part of the sphere, but they can help hide my join line.

I'm also wondering what to do about the rims/commander's hatch scotchlite areas. I'm wondering if I can do something to light it internally. Maybe create a translucent filament LED fitting under it? Of course that'd either be 16 LEDs or some big central light. May not be worth it, but might be fun to see if there's something feasible there.

Anyhoo, I think your model's brilliant, way better than the other models I found. I feel a little bad being so gung-ho about it when you're still playing with it yourself, I hope you don't mind.

- - - Updated - - -

Profezzorn said:
Spot/glazing putty sounds promising, I might have to give that a go.
I also bought some cheap airbrush stuff, we'll see how that goes when I get it. :)
Click to expand...

I saw that the painting guide used airbrush and was wondering about that myself. My wife and I have been doing a lot of stuff with spray primer. (A little thick to hide the lines in the 3d prints) and drybrush and other spray weathering. Presumably if we can spray I guess we can airbrush, right?
 
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So I haven't worked on this project for a while. Partially because the magnetic platform has turned out to be too flaky to work well, and partially because I've just been really busy with other stuff.

Anyways, first off: All measurements comes from photos of some kind, so they might be off. Most of the time I would compare photo measurements with something that I knew the size of, and get fairly accurate measurements. For the patches, I compared the 3d view of the model with the photos and tried to make it look similar.

There is a lot of things that got approximated in the model, so there is always improvements to be made, and I think it's awesome that you're doing that.
My current plan is to finish the remote and just put it somewhere on display. (Not floating) If I do work out a way to make it float, I'll probably have to make another one.
 
Profezzorn said:
There is a lot of things that got approximated in the model, so there is always improvements to be made, and I think it's awesome that you're doing that.
Click to expand...
I can't seem to touch things on Thingiverse without modifying them somehow :)

And thanks for your comments about approximations/whatever, that helps me know what I'm tweaking. I've posted individual parts (like for a scratch build) at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2236291 and rebeldroids.net (where my build log is starting). The idea of the individual parts are for people that want to build one but don't have access to the model kit.

I expect to build one (when I'm not spending the weekend doing taxes), but I still have a bit to do. I want to make the hemisphere's printable on an ABS/PLA printer, preferably without supports. With spots like a model kit for things like the commander's hatch which could be printed separately and then glued on. So most (but not all) of the stuff above about 45° should be printable on the hemisphere as one part. The things below that which poke out would use bits like the ones above. It's taking me a while to get the mount points like I'd like them.

- - - Updated - - -

(In case I didn't make it clear, thanks a TON for all your work on the model!!!)
 
BTW: static magnetic suspension is pretty much scientifically impossible. (Lots of papers about it, and the BB-8 Builder's Club did tons of research). To actually "float" on magnets, you either need some sort of guide or the magnets have to by dynamic.

I'm sure you've seen the toys that "float" above a fixture - but then they have a little stick that points out to one end so that it doesn't slide off.

And other toys that you spin to make them float. But when they slow down they fall off.

I'd like to figure out how to display one nicely. Frank Cerny's build for fanboys just hangs from a thin string in a plexiglass box and looks really good. I might consider something like that.

What I'd really like is to make some sort of stand or something so that it would "work" - that's likely a bit tough!
 
Just realized how small lots of these bits are :) I've been looking at detail that's not going to print on my extruders! I'm going to have to see if I can get work's Form1 behaving.
 
I got mine working again in case you wanted to see it. It's 10 years old now and definitely not accurate at all. But it is officially the first ever truly floating training remote in existence. lol

Some of the older members may remember it.

 
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