Dyne's Treadwell

[Dyne]

Awesome! Now I can retire

excellent work

Heh.  Thanks.

I have started working on the neck parts.

Encountered more STL weirdness.  Whereas the lens holder files imported at roughly 10 times their printed size, the neck STL that Paul supplied came in at about one third scale.  Bizarrely inconsistent, especially if they print correctly (not sure on the neck, but the lens holder did).  Of course, as I recall the neck STL was created in sketchup, which I've heard has issues when used for printable files.

One thing I've noticed is that the neck part is actually not a solid plate.

Have a look at the Head photo on the Electronics Today International article.  Most shots of the neck show that part edge-on, but when shot from a low angle like this it's pretty clear that it is more like a trapezoidal frame.  Which is good ... I struggled to understand how the head tilt mechanism could fit, otherwise.

I am still not sure how that tilt mechanism works, mind you.  There are no reference photos for the motor, which I believe is inside the head (according to the legend for that photo, anyway), or even how the little piston thing connects to it.  The same pic also indicates there's a counter balance spring attached ... somehow.

I'll also have to give some thought to whether to do the neck lifting mechanism (not the head tilt, but where the entire head and neck rises like it's mounted on a piston, ala WED 15-i662 on the sandcrawler, or the deleted scene with Luke and WED 15-77 at the moisture vaparator) ... and if so, how.  Doesn't seem like there's an easy way to conceal a standard linear actuator inside the body, given the way they are usually designed with offset motors.  Maybe something with an inline motor, more like the z axis on my printer.  They do exist, but hoo boy are they expensive.

Edit: After this post, I looked back through Paul's therpf thread.  I last saw it months ago, and I'd forgotten that he did modify his neck part after printing it.  I'll be designing my part to avoid the need for that.  He also shows how he did the tilt mechanism/spring.  I don't think that's how the original did it, but I think moving the servo out of the head was a good idea; no point lifting that weight if you don't need to.  I think the servo could be partially concealed by dropping it inside the neck frame.