Monster Mouse Droid? Maybe?

[kresty]

Playing around with what it might look like - scaled up the JoyMonkey files and stuck them on a couple 2D pictures of the car (rear view is a stock Toyota ad photo, the other is our car).

This is primarily to get an idea of the required scale and placement of the racks, and to see if it's going to manage to look reasonable at all when we're done.  (We don't want to do it have have it look too dorky).

Rough draft of top greeblies (rear)

Rough draft of greeblies (side)

[kresty]

One key bit is to figure out how to get the "greeblie racks" onto the factory rails on the car. I bought a rack set, but it's not really what we need, so I worked on the 3D profile of the rails and printed up a small section. It's a little too small until you get weight on it.... the amazing part is somehow I got the top straight on the first try.

Testing Roof Rack profile fit

(The infill being visible is because the print somehow failed after 4mm or so, but it was just a test anyway).

[savagecreature]

Not a bad fit for a first go!

[kresty]

Not a bad fit for a first go!

Yea, I was pleased.  It's close enough, so I'm not going to screw with the profile.  I want to print an "insert" in TPU anyway, so that'll be a little soft and bendy.  I posted the profile on Thingiverse, 'cause.

[kresty]

Mostly I expect to "just" chop off a bunch of pipes to the desired lengths.  There are a couple details I might print, but some of it won't be visible from the side/below (inside of the big pipes), so I'll probably skip that bit.  I did make a trip to the laser cutter today though.

The bottom side has some tabs, like solder tabs, so x6 scale I decided to cut those from some of the plywood.  There's also some plywood rectangles that needed made, and the laser sounded easiest.  The back edge of the greeblies has some up/down and chopped off corner, so I did that as well.

Spent about 2 hours designing and aligning the parts in CorelDraw.

Cutting details on the laser

Cutting details on the laser

Cutting details on the laser

Unfortunately, the laser only has as 24" bed and the greeblies are 42" wide, so I had to do the back piece in two parts.

Laser parts and masks

Took about 2 hours to cut them all... totally muffed up some of the rectangles, need 22, 13 were OK, but I accidentally made 9 on the other sheet too skinny.  So then I tried to recut them out of some scrap, but the laser was too fast and didn't cut all the way through.  (Accidentally picked 27% speed instead of 17%, oops).  So then I had to try to cut them again, but running out of scrap in work's maker garage.  Lined up some of them that weren't cut all the way through and recut slower.  (If I'd noticed before taking them off I could've just run another pass.  Grr.)

Laser parts

[kresty]

Part of all that laser work was making a pattern to place all the pipes - and the cutouts for the roof rack straps.

I'd decided that placing them was going to be annoying, so making a template seemed like a good idea.  They cut quick on the laser, but laying them out took most of the 2 hours I spent on CorelDraw.

A couple sheets right off the laser.

I'd had the plywood cut to 10"x42" already, so I just had to tape the stencils to the board.

Masking part locations for upper greeblies

Then a really quick & light spray with black.

Masking part locations for upper greeblies

Since some of the parts would make the stencils fall apart &/or overlapped, I did a 2nd layer of stencil.

Masking part locations for upper greeblies

And with both of them all sprayed.  I hope this'll help a lot and make things faster.  

Masking part locations for upper greeblies

On the left you can see where the darker slots for the straps share the space of a couple of the pipes.  I was a little worried about that, but decided I'd "just" notch the bottom of those 2 pipes on the side for the straps.

On the right side there'll actually be 4 small short pipes vertically where that one black circle is, which is all over the straps, so I decided to raise that a bit on a platform so that the straps and the pipes can coexist.  (Interestingly in JoyMonkey's files, those pipes are recessed, and I'm raising them.)

Oh, that reminds me.  I used JoyMonkey's files as a rough guide.  There's a lot about this that can't be exact, so I'm just trying to get the general idea.

[kresty]

One minor note: Obviously the car is gloss black car paint. Currently my plan is to make the greeblies flat black. Particularly whenever I get around to the chips on the side I hope that helps them stand out. Might also help hide all the imperfections I'm sure to have... We'll see.

[savagecreature]

damn. Looks like you're pretty serious about this.

Cool to see

[kresty]

damn. Looks like you're pretty serious about this.

Cool to see

Why doesn't anyone believe me?    
Maybe the thread being started years ago and then dropped has something to do with it?



My mom's the only one who fears I might be serious "why would you do that to your nice new minivan?"  I've tried explaining the greeblies are like ski racks and come off, so it's just for shows or whatever.  I don't think she "gets" it.



It's raining today.  Makes me wonder about my plans for water.  I'd been thinking to drill holes in the bottom of each tube on the board to let it drain, but after doing the masking that seems like a lot of holes.  And how big would they need to be to help?  And it's not just the tubes, but the sets of 3 also have triangular voids between them and also by the back wall.  So there're a lot of "drains" that would be needed.  

Realistically it probably won't get much use in the rain, so I'm wondering about skipping that completely and figuring that if it gets wet, I'll just turn it upside down?  Usually we only have a slow drizzle, so it'd be tough to have even an inch of water in the pipes.

[kresty]

Started painting pipes. Going to give them a quick once over before cutting because I figure it's easier to paint 5 long pipes than a 84 shorter pipes. I'll probably need to touch them up after sawing, but at least the main bit'll be done...