MSE-6 Build notes

[Roger Booth]

Thanks guy's, an SWR MSE-6 it is.

   

Might even do the red stripe between the two shells!

[Murasaki]

Im doing this to mine ... LEDs but two options, all on or chaser.


NOTE : Photo is for reference only, not my droid.

[kresty]

Consider the WS2812B strips on ebay. Then they're programmable so you can have chaser lights or different colors or pulsing or whatever. MCK-Y does that for floor lights. I think hers is 60/meter.

[Roger Booth]

I mentioned the chassis earlier and I have some photo's of the drive and steering units

I went back to the original car chassis and tried the the front and back against the bottom shell but the wheels were right inside the wheel arches and it didn't look good so I settled on a combination of my first attempt (The rough running one) but used more parts from the original cars. 
I've shaped some Aluminium plate so when both units are assembled the wheels sit better in the arches, these units will be bolted straight onto the bottom of the lower shell.

Rear drive unit

   

   

The front steering unit

   

   

These will be attached to the lower shell this weekend and I might give it a test drive!

[Roger Booth]

Time for a catch up (Too many other jobs to do and not enough build time!)

Lower shell has now been finished and painted black, just needs to be kitted out with the two suspension units and RC gear, will post pictures of this soon.
I did drive it around prior to painting and it is way too fast with it's current motor setup!
I have bought a 3:1 planetary gearbox for the motor, more on this soon but it does cut the speed down and makes the chassis easier to handle and more controllable, more on this soon.

The top shell has now been primed ready for paint, not much to say about this really except I cut a series of holes in the sides for the speakers, these will be hidden under the side circuit boards.

   
Before adding sound holes

   
Now with sound holes

   
Primed and ready for paint

One of the side circuits is ready and painted, ran out of IC's for the other side, waiting for another load to come from China.

   
I've added a few extras to make it a little bit different to the original.

[Roger Booth]

Worked on the top light holders for my SWR variant of the MSE-6.

   

I did buy some led lamp holders with plastic lenses but when lit the LED's inside were so bright the lens colour's were just bleached out so I have shelved these for now and decided that I'm going to use 10mm coloured LED's, the plastic holders they came with finish the top of nicely.

The two halves of the shell now fit together, I used plastic bayonet fittings usually used for building MDF furniture, this allows the front to slide into position, I then have two cupboard door magnets holding the back of the shell together. I can lift the whole droid up buy the top part of the shell without it falling apart but this is without any batteries, speakers, circuits, etc.

   

Looking good, just need some tweaking with the suspension ride height and the top painting.

[Paul6700]

Your MSE is looking great, I am really enjoying watching the progress. I also like that you are doing a Rebels version!

[savagecreature]

It's lookin really cool!

This inspires me to want to work on mine again, but I'm neck deep in a big project at work so it's going to have to wait until they unchain me from my desk. In the mean time I'll just admire yours

[Roger Booth]

Ok, so I've screwed up a gearbox! It was all down to the speed reduction gearbox I was using to try and manage the speed of my chosen motor/gearbox combination.

   
The offending article!

Whilst it did work, the speeds were much easier to handle and control but now several of the gears inside the box have suffered some lost teeth and it does still drive but sounds worse than it ever did! (This one has been trashed)

I have now swapped over to what I now think is a better and very smooth gearbox from one of the other chassis I bought, the wheel width is a little narrower than I would like but with the new wheels on it looks ok so I'm going to stick with this for now.

The back wheels have changed, I found some vintage Tamiya wheels on Ebay

   

They're the same width as the world GT's but a slightly larger circumference, the tyres are also fatter so they look better. Going to keep the front wheels as world GT's.

   

The main body and chassis is now complete with just the electrics to install, I'm trying to get my head around the Arduino code to flash the LED's on the top, nearly there with that so the whole Droid should be complete very soon.

[Roger Booth]

I only have the electrics for the lighting and bluetooth speakers to install and my MSE-6 will be complete.

   

It drives really well but has suffered a few crashes hence the little bit of battle damage visible in the attached images, this doesn't bother me though, it adds character.

   

   

Birmingham Comic Con next month.
We hope we can get out for our first event!!