Animatronic Horus helmet- here we go again!

Thanks guys! As soon as I get the main head pivot connected I'll make a video of it working. :)
 
I love this sort of thing.I vividly remember the Stargate movie and the impression it left.Then,I saw this concept on youtube and I was blown away by the possibilities of cosplay to reproduce this animatronic head.Awesome build of which we need more !
Good luck with the construction
 
THIS IS AWESOME!!!
(not that I had to point it out to anybody...)
I can never get enough of animatronics and machined and CNCed parts in costumes and props!
more of this!....please :D
 
SciFiPropFreak said:
THIS IS AWESOME!!!
(not that I had to point it out to anybody...)
I can never get enough of animatronics and machined and CNCed parts in costumes and props!
more of this!....please :D
Click to expand...

Oh there will be much more- there are several projects in the pipeline. :)

I've done a lot of production CNC work in the past (former bicycle parts R&D guy) but for stuff like this where I'm only making one or two I really enjoy machining parts by hand- I find it very relaxing. If you're going to make ten of something then by all means make a print and send it out to a good machine shop you trust. A lot of times with a project like this I'll do a lot of design sketches with some rough dimensions, eyeball everything and then make drawings from the finished parts. It's a little bit backwards but it's sometimes a faster workflow for me, especially when it's the kind of job where everything has to fit just right in a odd shaped casting and it has to have a specific range of motion.

One thing I always try to do with projects like this is use as many off the shelf parts as possible- I hate things like custom fasteners as it makes it a real PITA when you have to repair something in the field. There are certainly some applications where everything has to be custom made in order to fulfill a design requirement but if you can use a stock part then I almost always go for that option. Makes it easier for other people to replicate your work too.

Regarding this particular job I knew the head mechanism would perform in a very similar fashion to the movie helmet (it would have all of the required movements and I had already built something similar) but the detail construction would be different. Just different means to an end. The thing about animatronics is that I think you always work backward from the desired movement/effect. It doesn't matter how you get the desired result as long as it gets the job done and is reliable and can be serviced if need be. One thing I've learned is that you really want to avoid having to completely disassemble something to replace a damaged part or servo- that can be a real hassle. And document your work- make wiring diagrams, keep copies of drawings, document your code, etc. because I guarantee you will want or need to reference it later. One advantage of making tutorials for replicating my work is that I always then have an easily accessible online resource for all of that information. And if you share your work then other people will not only replicate but maybe remix/improve it and then you learn something new.
 
Honus
thanks, that's some great advice right there!
You have no idea how much you're helping me with this :D

Do you have your own CNC machine(s), or "just" traditional ones?

and yes, as I've been working in a science Lab for 3+ years (with "lasers" :D ) I know that documentation can be a pain in the ... , but it's even worse when you didn't write something down and need to replicate the results later on... :p
 
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Always happy to help!

I'm in the middle of building a small CNC mill as well as a traditional manual mill- both benchtop machines at home. I have a 12 x 20 laser cutter at home as well. At work I have a laser welder and that is an awesome tool to have access to... We're looking at getting a small SLA printer at work and we have a very nice 4 axis CNC at work for machining wax patterns.
 
I wish I was more technically-minded so I knew what I was looking at! Always envious of those who got this animatronic-robot-gizmo stuff!:D
 
Yep- those servos open the iris on each eye. The forward servo is for the head roll. The ball link allows the head to move up/down and left/right- the two small links at the bottom of the ball link mount are for servo control rods.
 
More work done. Still a few small bits to iron out and then I'll get to work on making the fans move. That's a tiny 10-32 ball link in the photo- it's threaded into a 3/8" rod and the rod has a collar with a set screw that holds it in place. The collar is positioned at the top of the main helmet body and moving the rod in the collar allows you to adjust the distance between the body and head castings to get the spacing just right.

 
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Well as it turns out the servo mounting plate assembly is a tiny bit too wide- I'm going to flip the servos 90 degrees and shorten the servo arms in order to make it fit properly in the main helmet section. I could use the current setup if I changed the servo arms and used smaller end links as it would allow me to position the servos closer together but the smaller 4-40 nylon end links have a tendency to break under higher loads. I hate it when things break so a quick re design is necessary.
 
This is going to be amazing ;) Somehow I don't think my Chronicle Anubis will seem as impressive when I get it after watching this tread
 
Barking Dragon said:
This is going to be amazing ;) Somehow I don't think my Chronicle Anubis will seem as impressive when I get it after watching this tread
Click to expand...

To be fair it's hard to compare it against a full animatronic helmet. I don't think there's any way those helmets could be made animatronic without the cost going up exponentially. They would have to produce an awful lot of them in order to amortize the cost to the point where it would be affordable.

Made a bit more progress today-



 
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