I’ve been tardy posting updates this last week – been busy trying to get stuff back together for the new Clone Wars movie.

I finally got my periscope installed and functioning. Here’s a short video of it in action

There’s still some small quirks I need to iron out, but I’m pretty close to being done with it (for now). One of the big issues is that everything has to be align perfectly, and taking the dome on and off isn’t as simple as it used to be. What I’ve quickly realized is that with every gadget I add maintenance goes up exponentially.

I repainted the periscope housing after tweaking the curve at the top to match my dome. While I was at it I clean up some spot that I wasn’t happy with

Right now the dome pie panel velcro’s on top of the periscope, but it’s hard to get it to sit flush with so much spring in the velcro. It also very hard to align things perfectly and to get it to stay put. I’m probably going to use magnets instead or even use the small side screws I added. Right now they’re just for show to mimic the ROTJ periscope.

I’m not convinced that the clear lenses look correct either, it’s hard to tell but I suspect the original had a slight frosting to it.

I really need to document the wiring and micro-controller setup for this, but here’s a few overview shots of the periscope installed and there are more in the gallery.

Right now, up/down is manually controlled by the Futaba transmitter, at some point I’ll probably automate this. I also have a small 08M Picaxe micro-controller dedicated to automatically rotating the periscope when it’s fully extended. In addition I have to route 12VDC from the main dome power board back down to the periscope light circuit. The Picaxe and the small mini-servo that rotates everything runs on 5VDC and just taps off of the power for the lift servo.

There are two small micro switches, the first trigger the micro-controller to start randomly turning the periscope when it reaches the top

The second turns on/off the lights when the periscope is raised/lowered

Related:

• More Periscope Work
• Lift Mech Support Bracket
• New Periscope Lift Mech Prototype
• Periscope Port Detail
• Periscope LEDs and RoboteQ

I replaced the original drawer slider bracket with something a little bigger. It’s cut from a piece of alu angle and makes the whole setup a lot more solid. You can see the original bracket in the background.

The slots make it easy to align on the dome ring

I still need to work on the riser below the periscope assembly and fix it to the lifter.

I’ve been busy prototyping a new periscope lift mechanism for Artoo.

Some of you may remember my earlier posts and videos demonstrating a mechanism I’d purchased from Daniel, unfortunately I gave up on it a very long time ago. In my opinion the design was flawed from the start and I never did get it to work well, but not for the lack of trying on my part.

Now that I’ve finished adding servos to the dome I was anxious to get the periscope working. I remembered seeing photos of Wayne Orr’s lift mech and thought I’d try and do something similar. Rather than fabricate something new he uses a drawer slide as the basis for the design and a small motor to hoist the periscope up on a platform.

The only catch with Wayne’s implementation is that the periscope and life form scanner mechanisms extend deep into the droids body. I don’t have this luxury as I’ve left the top ring cross bar in place to support the slip ring. So anything I come up with would have to fit within the approximate 10″ height restriction of the dome. The periscope assembly itself is around 6″ tall, so that would be the minimum requirement but if I could get more height that would be a plus as I could add an additional riser or have room for a servo to rotate the periscope once extended.

I’d shopped around and bought a selection of drawer slides, but couldn’t find anything shorter than 16 inches locally. Once I had them on the workbench I realized that it really didn’t matter because whatever extended out would need to be hacked off anyway. In the end I picked a 20 inch slider made by KV because it’s two sliding components worked in lock step, which was important to my design.

I removed the stops and hacked it down to just over 10 inches and cut a small section of the inner slider that would run up and down on the sliding bearing, which itself ran inside main track.

This is the start point with the slider on the right

And it extended all the way to the left. Notice the two part slider has moved and not just one piece.

Unfortunately I have to jump a few steps as I didn’t take many photos of my late night tinkering with the lift platform and various iterations of how I tried to move it.

I’d originally added a roller to the top (similar to Wayne’s) which would guide the rope, but in the final design it wasn’t really needed – and currently acts as the end stop.

Right now I have a fixed motor on the lift platform that pulls itself up with a piece of string attached to the top of the slider. It uses gravity to lower itself back down as the motor unwinds the string.

I’m using a small Vex motor, but basically it’s a servo that can continuously rotate, so I can plug it directly into my receiver without the need for a speed controller.

It looks like the platform is sloping in this photo, but I’m hoping it’s just the angle of the shot 🙂

Here’s a short video of it in action

I have a lot more work to do on this and not sure how well it will work inside Artoo, especially at an angle. My short list of things to work are:

• Add support to help stop the drawer slide shaking.
• Extra weight to the platform to help it lower.
• Make sure it’s all level
• Limit switches to stop the motor
• Possibly automate with the PICAXE micro-controller, rather than control it manually via the Futaba transmitter.

In closing I also wanted to mention that I’d experimenting with having a spring loaded wheel on the motor (same position as it is now) that would run along the side of the drawer slide to pull the platform along. I still like the idea and may give it another try later. It definitely had a smoother action and having a wheel on the motor made the lift a little faster – Unfortunately I couldn’t get the spring mechanism to work right.

I did some further testing of the periscope lift mech tonite. Got it partially installed in the dome. Just placed inside on the dome plate to see how much room I had to play with all around.

I was hoping I’d have enough space in there to add a small servo to rotate the periscope as the mech only raises and lowers – But it really doesn’t look like I’ll have the room.
I also need to widen the hole in the dome as the periscope housing touches in several spots.

I think things will improve once I get the housing glued together and more square, but this was a good test to make sure I’m on the right track.

I’m going to sleep on it tonite and try and figure how I can get the thing to rotate – even if it’s just 90 degrees.

As it lowers you can see that it touches the dome.