Make your own Crobot

Just passing time

2007-08-11T18:49:00.000+02:00

One old RC car

One Tony Hawk Helmet Cam
One LED headlamp

These three objects are about to become one

Winter time

2007-02-11T00:29:00.000+01:00

Time to stove everything away for the winter, cant do any spray painting outside between the snow storms and the polar bears. And the ol' Mrs. will mutilate me if I start using the kitchen, so it's all droped safely in a box, waiting for warmer times.

I am considering a little winter project though....

2007-02-11T00:07:00.000+01:00

Here's a picture of the torso taken when the paint is still wet. And I like it!
I got kind of an Irobot shine to it. Not that I've seen the movie..
I was wondering what to do with the eyes and detailes, since I've managed to get all the lamps to blink again, but right now it looks like I'll have to go with straight white, cause it looks good.
I think this will look really good after a couple of coats af clear high closs paint on top.

Got head?

2007-02-11T00:04:00.000+01:00

The lamps flashing away in the skull and breast of the robot are glued into place, so I had to improvise to get the wires out of the way when painting.

More destruction

2007-02-11T00:03:00.000+01:00

After the second coat of paint on the legs, it's time to break down the rest of the robot. Both arms had wires and LEDs in them, but by taking pictures I'm confident that reassembly will be possible.
The real problem is that all the wires were soldered to the circuit board, and I couldn't find my soldering iron, so hopefully I didn't break any connections when I ripped the wires from the board.

2007-02-10T23:59:00.000+01:00

Here's the left leg laying in the sun drying up (and attracting dust and small insects) after its second coat of paint

Grind It

2007-02-10T23:51:00.000+01:00

Sanding is important. You dont have to remove all the old color, but it's important to sand all surfaces to make sure the new coat of paint sticks.
Use a really fine paper between each coat of paint, and clean thouroghly with alcohol.

first test paint

2006-05-04T12:19:00.000+02:00

I'm not very satisfied at the outcome of the first attempt of spraying. It looks to cheap.. I'm gonna sand it down and add a second layer. Hopefully it will look better after I add the finishing coat of clear high-gloss paint. The white paint I'm using has a satin finish.

keeping it clean

2006-05-04T12:11:00.000+02:00

It's important to keep the cap of your spraycan clean. The manufacturers suggest that you turn your can upside down and spray untill only gas (and no paint) comes out of the nozzle. My opinion however, is that since I'm gonna spray loads of small paint jobs, this technique might empty the can of gas before I'm finished. Two coats of paint on one leg means I'll have to clean the nozzle 8 times. So my trick is to take of the cap and simply blow through it untill only bad breath comes out the other end.

2006-05-01T22:42:00.000+02:00

The content of this picture took me the better part of one day to get. It's a foamblock with a rather rough sandpaper attached to it, this will be used to even out some melting marks doen by the low-cost production.
There's some very fine wet sanding paper that I plan to use to even out any hiccups between the coats of paint.
There's Spirits to clean the part before spraypainting them.
And there's a can of white spraypaint. As an old graffiti writer I must admitt that Quick is not my favorite brand, but I got it for free from one of these people: http://museumsvert.blogspot.com/

2006-05-01T22:38:00.000+02:00

Keep all your small parts somewhere safe. All those itsy bitsy screws will get lost before you know it. To keep my losses to a minimum, I've got one glass container with a metal screw-on lid. The old toddler dinner glass was generously donated to the project by this young man: http://www.kepers.blogspot.com

Anti backward moving device

2006-05-01T22:35:00.000+02:00

The disassembled left leg. Notice the little "bridge" lying on top of one of the wheels inside the foot. This stops the wheel from rotating backwards and give the robot enough traction to walk forward(-ish).

Important

2006-05-01T22:32:00.000+02:00

It's absolutly necessary to mark everything with waterproof marker. This complementary CD marking pen does the trick nicely, but any brand or make that you would be comfortable bombing a train with, should be sufficiant.

2006-05-01T22:29:00.000+02:00

Detail of the mechanics inside the left leg.
The shaft running the length of the inside is the hook mentioned in the earlier post

legless

2006-05-01T22:23:00.000+02:00

Here's the gearbox with the left leg removed. notice the small grey hook that comes out on top of the thigh. It's cruical to reconnect this correctly to the gearbox if you dont want your finnished Crobot to have a rather daft limp.

picture of the inside

2006-05-01T22:11:00.000+02:00

Here's a picture of the inside of the torso and head. The robot is lying face down with the back plate tilted up behind it. You can spot the speaker inside the head and the entire electronic circuitry glued to the back plate. The black box in the middle is the motor an gearbox for driving the legs.

Third

2006-05-01T22:07:00.000+02:00

Next stop: the tea kettle

And its not for a hot cup of tea I'm afraid (even though that do sound nice). Boiling up some water produce a nice steam that works perfect for removing the stickers that decorate the toy robot.
These stickers cover some of the screws I need to access in order to take it apart, and I dont want those half-ass stickers on my finished Crobot anyway.

Another picture

2006-05-01T22:02:00.000+02:00

Here's another picture of the toy robot before the hack.
As you see the arms are poseable, but not animated in any fashion.
The 3 AAA batteries are behind a hatch on the back of the torso, and the sound FX speaker is located behind a grill that make up the back of the robots head.

Second

2006-05-01T21:52:00.000+02:00

Get a toy robot to tinker with.
I bought this one a year or so ago. It used to have a lot of flashing lights, but my former I'm-too-gay-to-be-nice boss, managed to break it somehow, so now the robot just shouts, make lazer sounds and walk forward in an awkward kind of paralympics moonwalk..

FIRST

2006-05-01T16:51:00.000+02:00

The first thing to do is to find out who the Crobots are. I found out by aimlessly surfing the internet, and coming across this webpage:
http://www.crobot-crew.com/
The two old school Crobots named Xed and Jumbo are the coolest droids ever! The rest of the crew might be cool, but I really doubt they can meassure up to these two.. There's even a roumor that one time the two ol' croonoids hooked up with a biped from the frozen fjords of Norway! -I cant imagine anything other than mischeave coming out of that, but anyway..

Getting started

2006-05-01T16:48:00.000+02:00

OK, this blog isn't gonna run for too long. I will try to make a Crobot, and document it here on this blog.
Hopefully, you will be able to recreate the prosess, and make your own Crobots by following my pictures and descriptions. And if I fuck up along the way, You will learn how NOT to do it.