Mama from Batteries Not Included

[Duncanator]

Hey gang!
I was starting a probe droid scratch build, but then I stumbled on some 3D files of the Batteries Not Included family of robot that weren't half bad.
Sometimes you have to take the inspiration when it comes!

I've been gathering info on them for years with the intention of scratch building them, but these are a great jumping off point. These 3D files are pretty good, but they have some things that aren't quite right, so I'll be accurizing them. I guess I'll get to do some scratch building after all!

When I started working at ILM back in the 90's, these guys were sitting in the model shop lunch room.

 

[Duncanator]

This build thread will focus on the mama robot. I'll do separate threads for the others when I get to them, but I'll show some pics of the raw prints just for fun. They all need a lot of clean up, and some parts will just be scrapped, but they are a decent start point.

 

[Clerval]

I used to love seeing them when walking through LDAC... this is a great project.

 

[George]

I love that (evergreen) movie ! This is going to be a great project.
Thank you so much for taking us on that journey. Subscribed !

 

[Duncanator]

So the first order of business is to sand, sand, sand. I was a bit disappointed by the faceting in the model. I don't mean the layer lines, I'm talking about the curved surfaces being broken up into planar facets. I suspect whoever modeled this was trying to keep the model from being too heavy, but unfortunately it ruins an otherwise nice model.

Ma's face was oriented toward the build plate, so ended up with a bunch of support pips on it. Rather than reprint the whole thing, I just cut away the crunchy area and printed a new face to graft in its place.

And now her face looks much better!

 

[Duncanator]

I should also take a moment to thank my buddy Kyle for printing the larger parts for me. I have a MonoX printer at home. It's too small for the body shells on Ma and Pa, but they do fit on the large format Carbon printers that Kyle has access to. Thanks Kyle!

 

[publiusr]

Now, wasn't there a Wolf 359 saucer derelict that was similar?

 

[joberg]

Great project Duncanator Eager to see your next update!!

 

[Kylash]

Guessing these are the goldenarmor 3d designs or someone else? ive got an Elegoo Mars5 Ultra, so i can probably only fit the little guys on there if i made some.

 

[Duncanator]

The next repair was on the backside, edges. They had printed with a slight warp in the bottom edge; so following the same procedure, i printed some new edges, cut out the old and glued in the new!

 

[Duncanator]

Now repairs aside, the modeling details on the top surface look fairly accurate - just need to sand out the facets.
The bottom details however are sorta' close, but far enough off that I needed to scratch build most of it.

The first part that jumped out to me was the sink drain looking part in the middle. The shape was almost spot on, but it was too big and had way too few holes in it. For this, I modeled it in Rhino. I'm kinda proud of it because it is the first piece I've ever modeled from scratch that was not planar or made from basic shapes like cubes and cylinders.

 

[Duncanator]

The bottom surface was modeled as a flat plane rather than with the gentle reverse curve that it should have. I also could see that the details. plating and panel layout was way off. This was true of several of the robots in this set. There isn't a lot of reference out there of the undersides, so I'm not surprised.

Fixing this required some severe surgery.


I cut out the entire middle area of the print, leaving only the outer rim.

You can see more of the faceting on the rounded edge. Bummer!

I turned a vacuform pattern for the new bottom which has the subtle curves that should be there....

...and then pulled a nice, new part in styrene.

Here is the new vacuformed bottom with the new drain, ready to be epoxied to the 3D printed rim.

 

[joberg]

Yep, major surgeries were performed to make that model more accurate. Glad to see that the patient is doing well on its recovery

 

[swgeek]

Ahh a Ron Charles vacuform. Wish I had one of those.

 

[Clerval]

Ahh a Ron Charles vacuform. Wish I had one of those.

Ditto. I was looking it over last night and... I dunno can you mildly lust after a piece of equipment like this? Cuz that might've been a thing...

 

[swgeek]

It's a thing for me.

 

[Duncanator]

Ditto. I was looking it over last night and... I dunno can you mildly lust after a piece of equipment like this? Cuz that might've been a thing...

I totally lucked out getting that vacuformer. A company I worked for a long time ago was closing up their shop, and I bought it plus a Sherline mill and lathe for a bargain.

 

[Duncanator]

I want to be clear that I don't think the 3D modeler who drew these did a bad job. Quite the opposite, I'm sure they did the best they could from the reference they could find. The tops of the robots are a good example of this, as they are really well done.

I hope I don't sound like I am bashing their work, especially because I probably would still be waiting to attempt making these robots. The inspiration to jump in to this project is a direct result of finding these files, even if I end up redoing a lot of the parts.
You can't complain about getting inspired!

 

[Clerval]

Wow, not enough to have the vacuformer but then has to play the Sherline card *sniff*... okay... we see how it is...

Great stuff, and I've loved these little jobbers. All of the times that I visited with Ralph, I can't recall if we ever talked about them. But they are shapes that bring him to mind straight away...

 

[Duncanator]

Guessing these are the goldenarmor 3d designs or someone else? ive got an Elegoo Mars5 Ultra, so i can probably only fit the little guys on there if i made some.

Ya, these are from there. They have their issues, but are a great starting off point.