"B9 Begins...." (1960's Lost in Space robot)

Greetings All !

I thought I'd start a build thread for this year's Halloween costume. And this year, I may have bitten-off more than I can chew...in a single year:

Of course, immediately after LAST Halloween, my friends (and wife) started asking: What are you going to do next? Well, last year, I made a 7 foot tall Velociraptor, which turned out surprisingly good, considering that I was using a cloth-pattern to mimic its skin/scales. But of course, I was thinking to myself: How do I TOP that? (Everybody always suggests a Transformer...that actually transforms. Yeah, there's a small project.)

Whatever I choose each year HAS to excite me.

And so, I surprised myself by committing to this idea back in January. (Unfortunately, I've barely done anything with it until this week!)
I decided that I would like to build a B9 robot (the robot from the "Lost In Space" TV show from the 1960's) costume.





My decision met several of my "usual criteria" for my Halloween costumes.:
Now, there are a fair number of folks across the U.S. who build their own B9 robot MODELS. Some of these do have some animated movement to them. There may be a couple that actually move on their own. (But some research with the B9 Robot Builders Club suggests that very few folks have accomplished that.) However, the PARTS for building such models (some of which are club-member fabricated) are very EXPENSIVE. On the other hand, they are also very, very accurate. And such accuracy may be overkill for a Halloween costume. (Yeah, if it ends up being more than a one-year-wearing, I'd be thrilled.)

I decided that my goals for such a costume, if it were going to "wow" anybody, should be:
I'm about to talk a little bit about #1 and #2. Please, please, if you have ANY ideas or comments that might help me avoid problems or advance this project, please post a reply here! This is one HUGE reason I'm posting here today.

So, how to accomplish motorized movement?

Well, I tried researching online the concept of building a 4 wheel mobile, wheeled platform. But overwhelmingly, I found info on how to build homemade Segways instead. Most such devices begin by purchasing wheelchair motors, gearboxes, and wheels as individual units. Folks buy two of those, some batteries, a battery charger, and then some sort of controller. The controller part intimidated me a bit. I don't know much about those and I'm sure there'd be a learning curve there, assembling all of this. And I still may run into that.

But, based on pricing I was seeing on eBay and Craig's List, it seemed like I'd be better-off buying an entire used electric wheelchair, with all of these parts installed and already working.

And so, on Saturday night, I bought this from a local guy off of eBay:




Used chair, but new batteries, and a built-in charger... all for $425...delivered to my door!

Now, obviously, I'm going to start removing the seat and anything "extra", while trying to maintain the joystick controls connection. And I'm going to have to study the wheel situation and see if the casters can be moved inward, a bit.

I should mention that, thanks to the B9 Builders Club, I have printed off the blueprints of B9. Based on my own height, I felt I should expand his dimensions by... oh, I can't remember off the top of my head if it's 8% or 10%. But I have that written down in my file on this. So, I know how big my B9's base will have to be...and I'm going to have to compare those dimensions with the wheelchair base dimensions as I go about stripping down the chair.


Now, regarding B9's voice, I just ordered a CD containing over 300 phrases said by the robot during the TV show, cleaned up. There are apparently two different CDs sold by two different B9 Builders Club members. I bought what members said was the better one, "iB9 Talk". I just ordered that a few minutes ago.

That CD comes with a built-in interface to let you run a sort of "soundboard" on a PC and use that to select phrases / to make B9 "talk". However, I'm going to have to figure out a way for this to be controlled remotely, by someone other than me (because I'll be having a hard enough time steering B9 and moving BOTH arms). Now, how to do this? I'm not sure yet. That's one major "line of research" I'll have to do. Someone in the B9 club told me they use a Bluetooth transmitter to send to their B9. My wife and I both have Nexus 7's, but they don't come with any sort of Bluetooth transmission capabilities (I think?).

So, this is certainly a long enough post for today!

If you have ideas for construction or materials-sources, please let me know! (I have done a bit of digging regarding the arms, but I'll save that post for another day.)


Thank you!

-= Dave R. =-

Awesome! can't wait ........... your Velociraptor was killer.

WOW, excellent choice for a costume! I will be interested in how you are able to do this keeping cost down

Greetings All !


Progress Report:

Body Work -- OK, so, a few months back, I obtained blueprints of B9 from b9robotbuildersclub.com. (At first, I chose Dave Painter's blueprints, but then club members redirected me to a set they felt were more accurate.) Assuming I want my head to be roughly where the actor inside the costume on the actual show's head was... and accounting for my 6' 2" height, I estimate I'd need to "stretch B9 taller" by about 10%. I don't necessarily have to go any wider, but I could, in keeping with that height change.

(Of course, now that I've actually purchased a wheelchair, I'm a bit concerned. My calculations had assumed I'd be standing maybe 2 inches off the ground, because I thought I'd end up taking wheelchair PARTS and attaching them onto some sort of PLATE. But I'm concerned that, if I try to keep the chair I just bought intact as much as possible, I may be standing several inches higher than that. We'll see.)

So, according to my blueprints, B9's "barrel-like" chest/chassis ranges from 26 - 28" in diameter (it's actually slightly wider towards the top). I thought perhaps I could start working with a plastic barrel with a 28" diameter. And so, I searched online, at Lowe's and Home Depot, for any large trash cans or tubs with that width. You'd THINK that the standard 55 gallon trash cans might be that wide. But they are not. They're typically 22-23" wide.

I posted at work, asking if anybody had some plastic barrels, or at least ideas for where I could get plastic RINGS. I needed only about 12" worth in height out of a barrel. And obviously, I didn't need a top or a bottom. The thought crossed my mind to take a heat gun to some PVC pipe... but how could I ensure that I was getting something VERY CLOSE to a "perfect" circle (well, at least one that people wouldn't obviously see as being lop-sided ?

Somebody wrote back, recommending CHILD-SIZED HULA-HOOPS. Of course, these would be way too flimsy. BUT, I had an idea: What if I filled them /hardened them with fiberglass resin? (I've worked with that stuff before.) I figure, if I drill two holes next to each other, I can use a funnel to pour resin into one hole while allowing air to escape the other hole. Then, just tape over the holes.



In theory, if those hula-hoops contained solid fiberglass, I could drill holes into them and use screws or nuts-and-bolts to attach some sort of covering to them. I think.

And hey, at $1 per hula-hoop, I can afford to at least try this out on one and see what happens! (Granted, fiberglass resin is a bit more pricey.)

After buying my hoops, the next day, I convinced my wife that we needed to visit the two local "Habitat for Humanity ReStores" in our area. Those places are like gold-mines for odds-and-ends materials. While we were at one of them, I spotted an 8-foot-long, 18.5-inch-wide piece of vinyl. I wasn't completely sure, at first, if it WAS vinyl. It reminded me of siding. It's completely flat, with a light texture surface on one side. Yeah, there's a bit of a "bite" taken out of it on one end, but there was more than enough material there to make a 28" diameter tube. It seemed fairly HEAVY, though. I concluded that it felt exactly like PVC. And hey, the "V" in PVC is Vinyl. My wife thought it'd be too heavy for my use. I don't think so.



Now, I do agree that if I simply wrap this around two fiberglassed-hula-hoops, the sides are gonna need more support. So I will probably have to use REAL PVC pipe (small diameter) to create vertical rails between the two hoops. Which brings up the question of how I'm going to attach such PVC to those hoops. So, that's something I'm mulling over right now.


Arms -- B9 has "signature" arms. Everybody knows what they're supposed to look like. Collapsible / curogated thick rubber. Now, where the heck does anybody find THAT stuff nowadays? The folks of the B9 Builders Club seem to routinely pay $200 for a pair of arms. Someone recommended me to the Gortiflex website. I emailed them, using specs that a B9 Club member used on a previous order. My quote came back $168. Ummmm.... no. I'd prefer spending half that... or less.

Can't use that landscaping drainage tubing. Most of it is very inflexible. Plus, the blueprints call for 7" diameter arms. That's outer-diameter. I couldn't find hardly anything with that diameter online, but I could find stuff with 7" INNER diameter.

Right now, I'm toying with the idea of buying 5 feet of leaf vacuum hose (7") off of eBay for $90. That's still a lot of money...and I've never really held such stuff in person. But the photos suggest it'll have the flexibility I need. I'm not sure if 5 feet is going to be enough, though. 6 foot = $113. At least that includes shipping. Still, I'm going to drag my feet another week, I think, on that one, until I can put just a bit more research time in.


Anyways, that's all I've got for now. Obviously, I've got a LONG way to go, as my wife keeps reminding me.

If you have any advice or ideas on parts, please post here! Thanks!

-= Dave =-

Well, it would seem that fiberglass resin was NOT the material to use to harden hula hoops. I expected a BIT of warping, as they hardened while standing upright vertically. But I didn't think through about how much HEAT was probably generated by the hardening process. I awoke this morning to find two VERY lop-sided hula-hoops.

So now I'm wondering what OTHER material you could put inside them to harden them? I would think wood glue would need exposure to air in order to harden?

Perhaps I should figure out some way to use the hula hoops (I still have two unused ones and can easily get more) as some sort of "guides" to use....and make my rings actually out of PVC?

-= Dave =-

Man, I can't wait to see what you come up with...

A thought off the top of my head: The hoops are just hoops, and don't have the stuctural strength of a disk. do you have the capability of cutting plywood disks? Either a router or jig saw mounted on a plywood boom, with a nail at the center will give you a disk of any diameter. if you built a barrel form, you could then bend your PVC around that form.

The people over at the B9 builders group woud know more than I, but as I view the pic above, it appears to me to be a center tube, capped, top and bottom, by a saucer section (for lack of a better term)

I would imagine that the structure has an internal framwork for support, or it is laminated fiberglass, laminated into a mold. I am assuming that you DONT want to go to all the trouble of molding a model.

clonesix said:

A thought off the top of my head: The hoops are just hoops, and don't have the stuctural strength of a disk. do you have the capability of cutting plywood disks? Either a router or jig saw mounted on a plywood boom, with a nail at the center will give you a disk of any diameter. if you built a barrel form, you could then bend your PVC around that form.

The people over at the B9 builders group woud know more than I, but as I view the pic above, it appears to me to be a center tube, capped, top and bottom, by a saucer section (for lack of a better term)

I would imagine that the structure has an internal framwork for support, or it is laminated fiberglass, laminated into a mold. I am assuming that you DONT want to go to all the trouble of molding a model.

Click to expand...

You're right. I don't. Clock is ticking. Yeah, I've been thinking more and more about making PVC rings to attach the PVC panel to. The problem is, indeed, making a form. I would think that it'd be easier if I have THICK plywood. And I don't have a piece lying around here that's 28" in diameter. I saw a tutorial online yesterday for making SMALLER PVC rings, where they formed them along the inside of a pot. I think forming the rings along the INSIDE of a form might, in fact, be EASIER than forming it around the outside...and get a true circle.

I'm probably going to check Walmart to see what I can find before I make another move.

Thanks!

-= Dave =-

With the height issues and using the wheelchair - perhaps you could mount an "ergonomic" kneeling design on top -

http://www.naturalliving.co.uk/acatalog/Kneeling_chair_A1.jpg

Although a bit more upright than that pic, but you get the idea...

Perhaps... thanks for the idea!

But I decided a few weeks ago that this will now be a TWO YEAR project (with most of the work being done AFTER this Halloween). There are simply too many things in my life demanding my attention for me to finish in time for this year. New job, new project going online next week, started running a Bible Study (one that requires a fair amount of preparation... it's almost like a community-college level course) at church... priorities, you know. Thanks!