Adding wooden plugs to the power unit

The casing for the power supply to the wooden head has cracked. This was pulled apart completely on the crack, and glued back at the same time as gluing the casing onto the power unit transformer.









Here it is being held temporarily in the vice, while a cramp is attached.










A conical casing for the %v end of the power lead had been turned, which had also cracked. This turned out to be helpful, as it was the easiest way to fit the plug










A pair of locking grips was used as a cramp to hold it while the glue set.

















Once glued and cramped, they were let to dry









Here is the finished mains end of the plug (face side)











Here is the business end of the finished mains end of the plug.

The transformer is held in place firmly using hot glue










And finally the finished end of the 5v plug

Creating a new oak casing for the new power unit

The head finally has a working wooden power plug.  The first power unit was burned out by soldering a new lead on before it even got the oak round it!

The second stopped working after it was encased in oak. It was not obviously damaged externally. It is likely it was broken inside by vibrations from the sander, as the plug was in situ, when it was subjected to some serious RPM.






See below for the steps undertaken to create this...


A new casing in the vice, being routed out to fit the plug.

Note the guide rail cramped to the bench. This is a guide for the handheld router to keep to a reasonably straight edge







A close-up of the inside of the casing, partly routed.










Fitting the plug to test the depth










The casing with routing completed, prior to finishing.










Checking the plug fits with both halves of the casing in place.

As the last unit was killed by vibrations, this one was to be finished without the unit in it though







To do this, the two halves of the casing needed to be sanded whilst kept aligned. The plug had done this in the previous attempt, but was not in place in this version.

Tow screws were inserted in one half of the casing to create guide pins to keep the halves aligned whilst sanding.








The guide pin after the screw head has been removed. This is to fit into a hole in the other half of the casing. (there are two of these)













To mark the other half of the casing, the two halves were aligned, then pressure applied in the vice.













This created an indentation, to mark where the alignment hole needed to be drilled.












The completed halves.










The completed casing, ready to be finished

The orbital sander responsible for destroying the last unit with vibrations.











The finished casing after planing and sanding. Unfortunately it cracked when the router bit in a bit too strongly. This cracked was later glued back together

New power supply

Having screwed up three power supplies so far, here is the new one...



Here's the previous plug, with delightful casing, but defunct supply!



I believe this time it was the vibration from the sander breaking the innards of the supply :(

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