Animatronic Tail

[Raven Luni]

Comments and criticisms here

 

[twister]

That is quite an impressive tail you've made! How did you make the plastic pieces?
I wonder if a motor with an eccentric would work better than a servo? It could have a LOT more power.

 

[gorgon]

How good is the UP printer? Do you need to sand the parts much to improve the surface?
I'm looking to buy a 3D printer in the future and if you can give me some hands on experience report it would be nice.

The tail looks great, but in my experience you need some big servos to drive this type of mechanics. The wire driven gizmos take lots of power. I once made a torso with alu arms, for an art installation. The resulting movement was a bit feeble, but just good enough, even with the biggest servos I could get in the shop.

TOK

 

[Raven Luni]

The UP is pretty good. I think they were still improving it when I got mine. The only problem is cooling / warping when its printing but that can be alleviated by keeping the ambient temperature high.

Yes the servos I used werent really up to the job - you had to get a back and forth rhythm going for any devent movement. I think there was a flaw in the circuit as well. The pots would fail after a while and I recently read an article about some of the easy mistakes to make with 555s. I gave the whole thing to someone who likes to experiment so its not a waste. I'll have another go with better design and components some time