Faux Wheels

[kresty]

Anyone have any clue what the diameter of the fake wheels is?  They remind me of kid's play area ball pit balls.  They might be about the diameter of the omniwheels if anyone recognized the model of omni.

[alr2]

Hi... Just keeping up to date with the extended info here.

Now...
(Bear with me on this)
In order to build like Oliver, you need to think like him.
Example: who the hell would use Lego for details on a droid to be used on a blockbuster Star Wars film? Easy: Oliver!

So with that in mind, I set out to think like Oliver.
One over the things I first thought was what size where the wheels and what on earth could he have used for the balls? (they have to be commercially available)
They're not light.
They're not cheep.
They're no soft rubber.
So I looked REAL close at them.
Then... Thought out of the box.

Here is my evidence and thoughts.

[kresty]

Hmm, that's an interesting thought, you make a compelling case.  I touched one and it felt more like plastic than rubber, though it was pretty brief touch.  Also I'm not sure about the size.

Lego studs are 8mm, or 4==32mm, so maybe 85mm for the sphere in this picture. (that was a really rough measurement, I might be able to find a better picture with a better "ruler") The website I saw offered 2.5" & 3" black Kong balls, though I'm not sure I trust their measurements.  3" seems about a cm short though.  Maybe my measurements are off.  Savage, did you get good measurements in the 3D model?

I also feel like they have a slight texture, unlike the smooth Kong balls - however both my feel test and the texture could have been fooled if they were painted.

Curious why you say they aren't light?

Close up of Faux Wheel

To be clear, I just called out the Omni - in this pix it's almost 45 degrees to the camera, so it's not a good ruler in this photo.

[olivers]

http://www.ema-models.co.uk/index.php/ab...?limit=all

Can't remember the size, from the picture above you can work out the sphere diameter.

[kresty]

Cool, thanks  Wow, they have a lot of sizes!  I think we can safely rule out the 11.1mm and the 233mm, and maybe one or two of the others ;-) ...

My wild rough estimate was 85mm, they 4 closest are 76.2, 82.6, 88.9 & 95.3, clearly

Good job hiding the seam!

Ok, this reply made me take out the picture again, this time I used the other side...

Copied faux wheel ball and overlaid on Lego brick section.  Lego studs are 8mm wide & I count a hair more than 11, except that the right edge that I attempted to align to is one stud further away from the lens than the others, so it might actually be a hair more than that.  11*8 == 88 - now I have to decide if the error means it's closer to 88.9 or 95.3, which are the sizes available from http://www.ema-models.co.uk/index.php/ab...?limit=all

Maybe someone else has a better way of getting a more accurate measurement?  12 studs is 96 mm, but it really doesn't look like my error would be as big as the entire stud.  (so that it would reach to the corner just left of where it is)... But it really does seem like the size is more than 0.9mm larger than 11 studs.  I'm gonna have to think about it.

Attempting to determine sphere size

[kresty]

Upon reflection I'm going for 88.9mm for the Faux Wheel diameter.

Attempting to determine sphere size

Savage has me doubting my math.  82.6, 88.9 & 95.3mm seem to be the candidate sizes.  Its around 10-12 studs long but there's no section of the photo that has that many bricks in a row at the same distance.  Additionally the droid is slightly rotated, which shrinks the left-right distance of the bricks a little but doesn't change the sphere.

So I count a little more than 11 studs in the overlay above, which is a little more than 88mm at 8mm/stud... but... The Lego bricks are rotated slightly away from the camera, so that distance is slightly less than 8mm/stud.  I think that's very slight and might offset the slightly bigger than 11 studs in the photo.

Additionally, my Lego ruler isn't all on the same plane.  The right end is one stud behind the others.  So that means I placed the overlay a little too far to the right.  So my nominal "slightly more than 11 studs" is actually a hair too big.

So:  11*8mm + a little bit (it looks longer in the overlay) - a little bit (my Lego Ruler is rotated) - a little bit (the right edge of the Lego ruler is recessed a hair) sounds like ~88mm or maybe a little smaller.

The options in Oliver's link have 82.6mm OD, 88.9mm and 95.3mm.  95.3 seems definitely out as we're ~88mm or smaller.  I have a hard time thinkin the "or smaller" is a whole 6mm though.

In summary, I've landed on 88.9mm for the faux wheel diameter.  It might be the 82.6mm one, but I don't think it's that small.

[kresty]

http://www.ema-models.co.uk/index.php/ab...?limit=all

Can't remember the size, from the picture above you can work out the sphere diameter.

I dunno Oliver, are you sure?  These are gray!

I would've sworn yours were black?

:-)

Thanks for the link.  Very cool.  Even cooler for Lara's build is that there's a Lego Sphere about the right size

[olivers]

Black paint

[kresty]

Black paint

Agh, spoiler, you've ruined it for me now.

BTW: Oliver, kudos, I know this droid didn't get a lot of screen time, but I like it.  I don't know how if the design is all yours or if you worked from concept art, but it's well executed.  The clean lines are very Imperial, but it still has detail in the antennae and bottom greebles.  And those lines are clean without being boring, the overall shape is pleasing, and the break in the middle keeps it from being too plain.  It totally looks like we would expect an imperial sentry droids to look like