PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 05.09. - Painting and Weathering!

PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 12.05. - Coming to life...

Hello! :D

I’m back. With a lot of news and images and all that good stuff. My motivation in the last weeks has been quite low since I was tired of all the 3D modelling and so only minor progress has been made.
However, I’m really happy to announce that I’m now filled up to the brim with motivation and dedication to finally get to it again.

In the last few days I made more progress than I expected and even the first printed parts found their off of my printer.
The most complicated part was without any doubt Wheatleys face so it took quite a while to get it done. But when I finally finished it up it was time to start printing it.

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Here you can see both halves of the inner parts creating the main part of the eye. All the weird groves and slopes and edges are there for a reason and I will explain as we go along. Please excuse all the messy parts, not much sanding or filling has been done yet :)

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A few of the holes are there to hold a shaft with a pulley later on where a fishing line will be running along. This line will pull Wheatley’s eye lids up and gravity will pull them back down.
As the servos are quite fast and gravity kicks in instantly too quite fast movement is provided to make the lids open and close.
I hate to say this but unfortunately there will be a 10mm gap when both are in the “closed” state. Compromises due to a lack of space :(

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The square-shaped holes in the back are there to provide a seat for the servos.
The upper and lower one’s are for the lids, the one at the left is for turning the face plate. This is done by some sliders hooked onto some arms to get a proper range of movement.

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This one here is for rotating Wheatley's face plate...

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and this servo is pulling the string for the upper lid.

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This whole section is extended by some circular parts which got cable canals constructed into them to hide most of the cables and lead them to the back of Wheatley where all the electronics are going to get stuffed into.
More to that later on :)

And here’s Wheatley’s face how we all know it. Since my printer is only capable of printing parts below the size of 200x200x180 I had so slice the face in four parts and stick them together afterwards.
In the back there are some grooves which complement the shape of the sliders which are moved by the servo. Neodym magnets will hold the face onto the main body so it’s easy removable if maintenance is needed to be made.

The black parts on the right and the left are the sliders which mount to the face plate.

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Details are still missing...

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Next stuff on the list are the rails.
The top and bottom rails are the same and are mounted on Wheatley’s face and meet up at the back. As the face is going to end up weighing estimated 1,5kg some modifications to the backside of the rails had to be made. Those slots you can see on the images are for casted lead inserts. They will end up as counterweights to the front-heavy build and take a lot of pressure off of the stepper motors in the end.
The rails on the sides will include inserts too but I haven’t got time finishing them up as the internal mechanics in the rails are quite complicated.


This is the mounting plate for the face and is attached via four M5 screws. The support structures from the 3D printing are still in place and have to be cut out later on.

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Now what is this? Right, the positive for the lead insert! :)
After the poured in MoldMax30 is cured a wonderful mold has been made. God how I LOVE 3D printing. Even though it increases your laziness by 100%.

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The lead was heated up and casted into shape. And yes, you can cast liquid lead inside silicone molds!! ;)

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And here is one of the lead bricks. A little bit more sanding is needed to fit it nicely in its respective slot.

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So the next thing I got to tackle is to print Wheatley’s eye lids.
I’ve been sitting pretty much one whole week at the code to control all 15 of the servo’s and stepper motors simultaneously so now there’s the time to actually make the first things move :)

I will try to get another update out as soon as possible although earliest two weeks from now! I'm going to head on a business trip to LA next week so if someone is around wants to hang out, PM me :p hahaha.

Cheers and take care all of you!
Mario
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 12.05. - Coming to life...

This is really taking shape nicely. Can't wait to see it move. On a side note, you're heading to the wrong coast!
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 12.05. - Coming to life...

You're back! Yaaaaay!

This looks really cool, coming together nicely. Having spent the last 2 weeks staring at 123D Design myself I feel your pain ;)
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 12.05. - Coming to life...

This is really taking shape nicely. Can't wait to see it move. On a side note, you're heading to the wrong coast!

Thanks a lot! :) Yeah I'm really excited to have it move for the first time.
I assumed you would say that haha but there's no chance I could make some time to head to the east coast :( :)


You're back! Yaaaaay!

This looks really cool, coming together nicely. Having spent the last 2 weeks staring at 123D Design myself I feel your pain ;)

Uhhh, really? The learning curve should be pretty steep once you get a hang of it. Wish you the best of luck and patience :D :)
 
PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 14.07. - The first sphere!!

I’m BACK! :D
Sorry for not posting anything in the last two months. Have been quite busy with stuff, you know how life is ;)
However I did manage to finish Wheatley as a 3D model completely and the excessive printing did start this week. My printer played dead in the last couple of days and for that reason I bought myself another one of the same model to not waste anytime in bringing the project to life.
Luckily I managed to repair the old one somehow and now I’m in charge of two of those nice little helpers :D

Additionally to that the company I work in bought an Ultimaker Extended 2+ which is free for use too. 3D printing heaven.

Let’s start with the pictures. As the face of Wheatley is finished up completely (images will follow next time) I started working on the inner spherical corpus aswell as his back (let’s call it bucket) which acts as the basic structure all other parts are mounted on to.

Wheatley’s bucket consists of several interlocking rings which are reinforced using aluminum rods, threads and screws to get a massive and heavy corpus.

Those grey rings are the outer parts of the first ring. Printed with nearly 100% density to give them enough sturdiness.

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The black parts are inlayed in the grey circle and form up the first shapes on his back. The empty spaces are going to get printed later on and are used as latches to get to the internals (electronics, motor drivers, etc.)

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All glued together… :)

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The little black spacers are for mounting the sphere parts onto the bucket.

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blarhghlhlgrllghrlabl!!! :D :D :D

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Next part on the agenda was printing the second ring which screwed and glued onto the one I just finished.
M5 nuts are inlayed in the sloped parts as their threads will used secure the spherical parts of Wheatley later on.

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And mounted but not yet glued together. I have to wait for a few parts to arrive first before I can continue on that part :(

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The grooves with the bigger holes in them are used as seating for two 25mm fans which will generate a little bit of airflow for all the electronics inside the backside. The motor drivers for the steppers tend to get quite hot so here’s my attempt to keep them cool if Wheatley runs for a longer time.

The airflow then blows to the respective ventilation slots I put on the top. It can be seen if you look directly from top of Wheatley down but that’s just a minor issue. Better to keep the components cool than some little “imperfections” ;)

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In the meantime all the shells have been finished!
Some red little plugs are inserted and act as alignment for gluing them together properly. They're not glued together yet as there's a little sanding left to do :)

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Mo-mo-moneyshooooot! :p

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Thanks for checking out everyone!! :)
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 14.07. - The first sphere!!

Hehe, i'm glad you're still using the word "bucket" to describe that section. I pulled my original crappy drawing out the other day when I was cleaning and it made me laugh at how bad it was, but managed to get the point across :p

This is looking so badass. It's making me want to buy a 3D printer! How much print time have you used so far? And what's the resolution of those pieces? The grey pieces look more refined than the black and white ones?
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 14.07. - The first sphere!!

Hehe, i'm glad you're still using the word "bucket" to describe that section. I pulled my original crappy drawing out the other day when I was cleaning and it made me laugh at how bad it was, but managed to get the point across :p

This is looking so badass. It's making me want to buy a 3D printer! How much print time have you used so far? And what's the resolution of those pieces? The grey pieces look more refined than the black and white ones?

It actually describes the... thing... best :D I'd tip my fedora if I had one, all credits goes to you haha ;)

I will post a photo later on, I actually have your sketch printed hanging on my wall in the workshop :D :lol And all the other images from your imgur-link of course. They're amazing!

The resolution however is 0,2mm on every printed piece so far. The white/black parts may look a little rough as they are the parts I did a little sanding on.
The outer side of the grey ring is untouched and fresh off the bed. Material-wise they are all the same. PLA from ICE Filaments. Great stuff.
And dude, get yourself a 3D printer, you won't be able to stop printing as your head comes up with more useless stuff to create as soon as you have one.
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 14.07. - The first sphere!!

Loved the description on one of your pics: "my nuts are inlaid" (maybe that's just me, but it made me laughed out loud:D). As for the project and the work involved, I'll tip my Fedora to you and your skills(I can, because I own one). Glad to see you're back in fine form, I'll say. Keep us in the loop and really looking forward to your next update!
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 14.07. - The first sphere!!

I laughed at blarhghlhlgrllghrlabl!!!. (Link to what popped in my head when I saw the photo).

I imagine that ThePropBox spends 5 minutes gluing some parts together, then 15 minutes composing some sexy shot with just the right light. But everything looks like it is coming together nicely.
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 14.07. - The first sphere!!

Loved the description on one of your pics: "my nuts are inlaid" (maybe that's just me, but it made me laughed out loud:D). As for the project and the work involved, I'll tip my Fedora to you and your skills(I can, because I own one). Glad to see you're back in fine form, I'll say. Keep us in the loop and really looking forward to your next update!

M5 nuts!! Not my nuts are going to get inserted in there :lol :lol :lol
Thanks a lot mate, really appreciate it. Update's are definetely coming more frequent now as new parts are printed every day :) I just have to wait for them to be finished.


I laughed at blarhghlhlgrllghrlabl!!!. (Link to what popped in my head when I saw the photo).

I imagine that ThePropBox spends 5 minutes gluing some parts together, then 15 minutes composing some sexy shot with just the right light. But everything looks like it is coming together nicely.

Oh my :lol :D This is AWESOME hahahahaha.
For some reason I had this little guy in mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y3_rIfOOf0

Guilty for all the mentioned reasons! ;) Building the project is just half the fun of actually capturing the progress in some nice lighting and some creamy background blurryness. Aww yeah.
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 14.07. - The first sphere!!

Glad to see you're back at it! Can't wait for more updates!

It's great to be back, thanks a lot!! :)

Will try to drop a few this week as parts are printing all the time. Cannot wait to make Wheatley move for the first time.
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 14.07. - The first sphere!!

Don't know how i missed this thread :eek:. Great work as always ThePropBox, looks amazing. And a verry nice job on your Gravity gun aswell ;)

-Hopli
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 23.07. - It's taking shape!!

Hey guys!! :D

I made great progress in the last few days as my two 3D printers have been working nearly 24/7. Gonna love my minions! They got new juicy bearings so no worries they miss out on something ;)

However let’s start with some pictures. I added some watermarks as I happened to find my WIP-pictures in one forum and the guys there was claiming to be me. This apparently won’t stop them but it’s some form of precaution. I don’t mind if my pictures get shared when credited. So long… let’s go!

These black parts are the puzzle pieces which will form the inner backside of the bucket where are the electronics, motor drivers, etc. are going to get seated.

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Some orange pegs were needed in order to align some parts which needed to be glued later on. On mostly every printed part there is some kind of hole for pegs for this. Really helps out a lot!

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This is the center part of the puzzle-backside. In the middle you can see the hole for the stepper motor whereas the little black humps are actually there to have some threaded nuts stuffed into them – ergo the mounting holes for the PCB’s.

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After all the parts were finished I did a quick test fit to see if everything is lining up as planned and put in all the electronics temporarely.

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Next thing was to glue the outer parts together and as the glue dried I quickly aligned them with already finished part of the bucket they get to attached to later on. So I had a perfect guide they were glueing together nicely.

Additionally to that a belt was tightened around the construction to apply a little bit of pressure evenly on the surface.

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A few hours later I began test fitting a few components while the other side of the parts were in printing queue. (There are a lot of parts to this build so don’t worry if you get confused. I do too) :)

The axial needle bearings were put in place and also the stepper motor which is used to rotate Wheatley later on found its way in its soon to be home.
The motor will later be inserted completely to be flush with the cylinder in the middle.

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And now, ladies and gentlemen…

Et voila!! :)

I put it together temporarely to get an idea of how big it is actually going to be. The orange parts are little helpers to keep the alignment of the grey parts correct.
They will be removed later on and replaced by some nearly invisble clear rods.

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Aaaand I made a little stand to make it easier working on it :D

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Thanks a lot for checking out guys!!
Mario
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 23.07. - UPDATE: It's taking shape!!

Holy cow, This build is incredible, I bought a whole chair today but I'm currently only using the edge haha.
1412194819756
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 23.07. - UPDATE: It's taking shape!!

Don't know how i missed this thread :eek:. Great work as always ThePropBox, looks amazing. And a verry nice job on your Gravity gun aswell ;)

-Hopli

At least you found it by now :D
Thanks a lot, nice you checked out the GG. I'm really proud of it :)

Holy cow, This build is incredible, I bought a whole chair today but I'm currently only using the edge haha.
http://static1.squarespace.com/stat...f2c/t/542c6203e4b0407feb12b72c/1412194819756/

Hahahahahaha :lol
Great you like it man haha, that picture made it for me!
 
Re: PORTAL 2 - Animatronic Wheatley - 23.07. - UPDATE: It's taking shape!!

This is fantastic, such amazing detail.
Makes me want to go and play Portal 2 again!
 
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