Making a wooden power plug

Having finished the head, it seemed poor to use a plastic plug. What better than a wooden plug?

Initially I started trying to take apart the plastic casing of the transformer, which looked like this. Unfortunately, the supply failed, which I believe to be due to fusin printed circuit connections with solder while trying to solder a new lead onto the circuit board. FAIL!

Having destroyed one supply, another was found in the shed. This was fitted up with an oak casing

This was made from two short pieces of oak plank, with a cavity taken out with an electric router



The two halves together look like this


These are not flush.  To do so they needed to be sanded together as one piece. This would only work once glued together. Here theyare in the vice with cramps attached (one traditional iron screw cramp, and one metal/plastic ratchet cramp)

Head is finally finished...

Finally the head is just about ready...

I amused myself looking up the original drawing....


Here's what's inside the face...

...and the arduino control circuit under the base...

All that really remains is to make the power supply...

Moving automaton head electronics from test-bed to in situ base

On the bench. Trying to transfer the patched electronics from the nice easy patch-cable connections of the test bed to the real, hard-wired circuit in the final location of the base of the automaton head.

Testing the pots...

The arduino screwed down in place, in final location inside base.

 
Connecting up all the wires that need to be at the positive (+5V) voltage, by threading through a circuit board, to be soldered together.

Final +5V "rail" with all +5v connections soldered together

Connecting up all the wires that need to be at earth (ground), by threading through a circuit board, to be soldered together.

Final earth (ground) "rail" with all earth connections soldered together

The final circuit in place in the base, next to the conceptual circuit layout diagram.

Fitting arduino electronics into the automaton base in practise

Having finalised the circuit, it needs to move from test bed to final location with the base the automaton sits on... Here is what the arduino test bed looks like. Spaghetti everywhere. Most of which is just convenience wiring to help.


This is the circuit drawn out in beautiful hand-drawn pen.

This is the head on it's base (not finished here)

This is the box and how it opens out showing the space available

So here is the tidied up circuit diagram showing approximate location of the electronics. Next to it, is the box with the control pots in place.

Making a base for the automaton head

Measuring out base from an oak plank

Drilling pilot holes for recess, that will form internal housing for electronics. I love working with oak - such a great smell, yum :)

Cleaning up internal cavity

The internal space for electronics, finished

With lid...


This is the head on it's base

New simpler electronics

I have bought a fine bag of potentiometers. How sad!

They are presumably culled from some beautiful old stereos, but anyway...

Here is the more or less final circuitry. I have decided not to tackle the power issue about servos only getting  current on a change of signal. This is a cop out, but it's time to move on.

Power
however, I have introdcued a transistor to step up the current to the eyeball LEDs.

This does make them a little brighter

Arduino servos and power burnout...

Wanting to complete my automata-based reading lamp, but having had a lot of servo burnouts, I am trying to prevent the servo getting any power in between position changes. This should greatly reduce the risk of heating.
struggling with the circuit.

If I us digital pin outputs, an output voltage can easily be turned to HIGH (5V) or LOW (0V), but only seems to work with no servos attached. When they are attached the voltage is only 2.5V.

not sure what I'm doing wrong

valPot1 = analogRead(potPin1);            // reads the value of the potentiometer (value between 0 and 1023)
  if ((valPot1 <= midLow)or (valPot1>= midHigh)) {
     digitalWrite (PowerPin,HIGH); //turn on power to servos briefly only at point of writing to allow movement;
     digitalWrite (ledPinJoystick,HIGH);
    // potActive1=true;
    valPot1 = map(valPot1, 150, 900, 0, 179);     // scale it to use it with the servo (value between 0 and 180)
 
    myservo.write(valPot1);                  // sets the servo position according to the scaled value
 
    delay(delay_val);
 digitalWrite (PowerPin,LOW); //turn off power to servos again once moved to reduce heating effect;  
  }
  else {
    digitalWrite (ledPinJoystick,LOW); // signal that value is in mid-range dead-spot - used to turn off LED that indicates joystick activity;
    digitalWrite (PowerPin,LOW); //turn off power to servos when inactive;
  }

Christmas crackers...

Christmas crackers...
Originally uploaded by rosemarybeetle

Why, Christmas crackers can be good! Look what the trinket gift was in my cracker this year. By chance, exactly the pair of 1000V safe, high tensile alloy long-nose pliers I need to bend and sculpt wire etc. into shapes. Thanks Santa!

Making pantomime costume head - completed vulture head

The finished vulture head



Shown below is the original mask with the papier mache casing removed. The cling film barrier layer can be seen. This stops the PVA sticking to the underlying model.

The two halves are removed by cutting in half symetrically - lengthwise along the centre of the head, from front to back.These were later stuck back together with reinforced packing tape along the join, which had a strip layer applied over it to hide the join.

After painting and detailing with marker pen the finished head was varnished with 3 layers of flooring varnish.