Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster. Joined here only recently. Have always been a fan of robowars, however my reason for joining is ever so slightly off topic, as you'll see.

To fulfil a boyhood dream, I am building a fully operational model of the Robot Dog K9 (of Doctor Who fame). See a pic of my recently completed body shell below.

I have purchased two of these wiper motors from robotmarketplace. The have a nice shaft with thread on one end. I have also got some Mtroniks Speed Controllers, and a six channel Futaba system I got second hand. Bare in mind K9 isn't meant for battle (his shell is made of MDF! I doubt he'd stand up to a battle bot weapon!).

Now I'm looking for wheels, and some sort of hub that will attach to the motors and hold on the wheels. I have a friend who has a metal lathe and may be able to make some for me, but I was wondering if there was any sort of premade things I might be able to get a hold of, including wheels? I've seen a bundle of wheels at Bunnings but not sure any of them will suit.

Here's an example of a "drive system" that someone else made for their K9. http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/robertcork/Drive.jpg

If anyone's interested, other functions in K9 include tail that wags, head nods up and down, probe (electric car aerial) goes in and out, blaster gun goes in and out of nose, and ears wiggle.

I know this isn't exactly robowars material, but many of the mechanisms appear similar (although I don't have a burning desire to get him destroyed!). Perhaps if I could get him a REAL nose laser...

Here he is anyway (so far).



Any and all advice appreciated.

Last edited by Jeeves Melchington on Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hi Jeeves; first off your not alone building K9, Geoff in Sydney did one some time ago.
I am sure we would be all very pleased to have you bring your K9 to a Robowars event. We normally have fillers between the actual fights and novelty bots or whatever you like to think of them as are most welcome.

As far as wheel attachment, fairly easy if you have a friend with a lathe, something along the lines of a piece of round bar, drilled and taped or just drilled and pined to extend the output shaft of the wiper motor.
It would have to be pined tack welded etc or it would just unscrew when the motor reversed so threading it is probably a wast of effort for the light duty use it will get compared to a combat model.
Then a hole drilled through and the wheel or notched to stop it spinning on the shaft.
I would put a bearing on the opposite end of this extended shaft to take the weight and stop the load braking or bending the motor if someone sits on him.
If you come along to any of our builders get togethers or events happy to give more advice.

ha ha, yeah jeff made one of those, had drills for drives and such, never actully saw it running under radio but looks very cool

I personally reckon wipers r too tricky and cubersome and some simple drill motors would work nicely, but whatever route u choose best of luck with it and hope it is awesome

I have personally loved any and all things animated or in the lines of animatronics (think movie special effects and shiz) and stuff like what your making with wiggling ears and stuff is EXTREMELY cool

Please post videos/pictures as u progress further with it and best of luck with it
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Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

That looks really good.. - I always wanted a K9 as a kid

Its great to see recreations of K9's, B9's, Daleks and all the famous movie robots..

I spent quite a while tinkering with a Voice synthesizer back in the TRS-80 days trying to reproduce the exact timbre of K9 and the WarGames computer voices. I suspect now that they were more of a Vocoder-effect with humans speaking rather than actual synthesis, but I know more about Audio processing now than I did then..

If you are not up to anything on Sunday, you should see if you can make it to Daniels gathering at Grantville. I've been speaking with a few of the builders who have been lurking for a while and it sounds like we should have a good turnout. David (Machina LaMort), Jason, and quite a few others who normally lurk are sounding likely to be there.

A lot of bot builders like creating bots with character as well as their combat bricks, so it should be interesting to swap ideas and see what we might have in store for the future. Bots like K9 would also go down well at the upcoming Model Engineers Show as well if you would like a chance to show your creations to people.

It would be good to meet you there.. I wonder how many other lurkers are out there working away in their laboratories ?
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

K9 has a voice actor in the credits.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

Hi guys (and gals if there's any around!). Yep, K9 had voice actor John Leeson playing his part. In fact, the new series of Dr Who starts on the ABC this weekend on Saturday night. There is an ep where K9 and Sarah Jane Smith return, and John Leeson reprises his role as K9's voice. Leeson played K9 for two years, then gave it away and another actor David Brierly did the role, but there was a huge outcry and John Leeson returned for K9's final season.

Would love to come along to Grantville but sadly am busy on Sunday, but the exhibition in Sept/Oct looks interesting. I'm hoping to get at least his drive up and running this weekend. Also take the point about the bearings, I had been thinking about that, though I don't think I'd let anyone sit on him, I don't think he's quite strong enough. his entire body is MDF though I was thinking about making a fibreglass version using the existing body as a former for the mould.

The final episode of season 2 of the New Doctor who will be out on the net this weekend Its been a great season, K9 was pretty cool

Can you burn them for me Lindsay?

Jeeves, first of all, I would pay a small fortune for a copy of your plans.
Ther!e is little to nothing on K9 on the net Iv`e found.
My plans were exploded from a matchbox sized, foldup, cardboard K9 in an old book compared with photos.

I`ll stick a pic of my K9 in the photo gallery.

The WW motors will give you great authentic speed and sound. Mine had two 9.6 v. Ryobi drill drives and could fly down a long hallway and pull off some wicked 180`s!
He had face lights, wagging tail and wiggling ears on a four chanel radio.
I ended up pulling the guts out for a combat bot but I dug out his shell after finding your post and put some batteries back for his lights.

I notice the floor bumbers are missing in the pic of the shell. If you don`t have something already, I used piping insulation foam from Bunnings, sliced down one side to slot onto the body. It come s in different dia.s

Can`t wait for the Sarah/ K9 episode and to see K9`s blaster barrel actually swivels instead of the old "beem fires off in a different direction!"

Great to see another K9 builder here. Please keep us updated.

Cheers,

Jeff

No owrries Jeff, I will bring them to the next event. Do you need season 1 as well as season 2?

Also, you better have a robot working for the event, or I may "lose" the DVDs!

Don`t need season 1 so thanks, that would be brilliant!
I am working on a bot right now!

http://www.357.com/chris/k-9.html

quote:

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Originally posted by Giant Robo:
Jeeves, first of all, I would pay a small fortune for a copy of your plans.
Ther!e is little to nothing on K9 on the net Iv`e found.
My plans were exploded from a matchbox sized, foldup, cardboard K9 in an old book compared with photos.

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Here's a few more pics. I've made the holes in the base and installed the rear castors and also mounted the motors. I got hold of some threaded extensions from a place in Melb called "Metfasteners". Two different types. Should be able to adapt them to mount the wheels on. in the photo below, I have mounted the wheels but they are to close and will catch on the mounting bolts but at least it gives me an idea of how close to the ground he's going to be.

Just incase you dont already know, I *think* (confirm anyone ?) Wiper motors are advance-timed, so when using them opposite to each other like that, you might find K9 has a tendency to chase his tail (or at least drive in circles).

If so, You will need to trim this out with your speed controller, radio or a gyro or something.

You could use a servo-retracted laser-pointer-pen for his nose-laser, but you would have to rig a small smoke-machine-type blower to make the beam visible. Kind of like the trick where you shine a laser-pointer into a cigarette smokers open mouth while they exhale.
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

The wiper type motors in the pic appear to be a handed pair.......if so there shouldn't be any problem with one motor being appreciably slower than the other.