I prefer to speak in images…
Thanks for the images James!
This guy is turning out pretty nice. The mandible/head rotate is perfect! It’s smooth as butta and there is no slop. I’ve changed the bottom to accept a large lipo if desired. The tail can accept a microcontroller or two of them as the original. The body can accept an SSC-32 to simplify the wiring. The mandible head plate has extra SES holes, but I’m dropping them on the production version. As you can see the legs are assembled using the 45 degree brackets, as the attempt to use our normal coxa design didn’t work out. So the femurs are correct now. I will shoot some close up images to show off the features. I also have the tibia assembled with ground contact switches. First test went extremely well. Minor tweaking will make it perfect. Should probably weigh it now as well. 
I’m stoked! :mrgreen:
Here are some images of the ground contact foot switch. It’s pretty much the same as the other ones in principle. A snap switch with a movable segment in the tibia that actuates the switch.
Looking very good Jim!
That’s more like it! 
I like the options of having the SSC-32 inside the body and the BB2 in the tail. I think its a good idea to concentrate most of the mass in the center of the robot by placing both battery and SSC-32 in the body (if that’s possible?).
The proportions looks fine. I would recommend using 5645’s servos in the mandibles if you wan’t an even better grip, 645 will do the job though. But there is a significant difference in using digital vs analog servos when it comes to holding torque.
Looking forward to more pics!
EDIT:
Wow! 
You beat me to it.
The contact switch tibias looks awesome! Wan’t one… (six)!
I bet it will work very fine.
Thanks a lot Kåre! It really means a lot to hear that from you! Yeah I hated leaving the upside down femur picture as the latest progress, but just ran out of time. I’m really liking the look of it now.
Yup it is possible. I figured the vertical hip servo was already much lower than the bottom body panel, so I took advantage of it and implemented 3/8" standoffs for the battery cover. It lowers the ground clearance a bit, but even that behemoth 8000mAh battery fits inside the chassis and that’s with the SSC-32 lowered 1" inside the top chassis panel.
Not sure if I should make the 5685 (7.4vdc version of the 5645 which is going away) the default or make them an upgrade. We’ll see… Here is an image of the mandibles/head rotation. I am extremely pleased with how well this worked out!
A minor tweak to the holes on the movable portion of the tibia and it’s perfect. :mrgreen:
great update. id put this down as being the best kit you guys have pulled out of the bag. i feel it will also come with a large price, but for those who will be able to afford it, then im sure they will be more than happy.
excellent work.
i will be ordering the ground contact legs… will the tibia be available as a lone product or will i have to buy the whole leg?
oh its sexy…
Okay, Snailkeeper, we are really starting to need that Envy smiley now!
I rather think you’ve got a sufficient vocabulary to easily compensate for the lack of a smiley. Just sayin’.
Thanks for the good words Jonny! Kåre deserves all the credit, I’m just making it available…
We will probably sell a full kit of everything, and the basic walker as a kit so you can add on the abdomen and mandibles later. We’ll also sell the legs separately, but not sure about breaking the tibia out of the leg. We’ll see what we can do.
yes i thought this might be the case. its a good idea and a nice way for people to build up a custom robot or save up to get the full kit while getting a chance to play with it before the kit is complete.
if not i might just reverse engineer the design.
There’s just no slipping anything past you is there? 
Wow, nice work guys! It looks really awesome!
Thanks for the detailed pictures. It looks like you managed to build the 3DOF neck without having to increase the offset of the lower and upper body part. That makes it a lot easier to construct in large numbers.
I second Zenta that it’s smart to have the SSC inside the body because of the huge amount of wires this baby needs.
Great job on the pressure switches. Seems that this fella needs to get his code done so it can be used! 
Do you also have an pressure switch in the mandibles? It should be a good thing to make sure it only grips a can of beer, not crushes it 
b.t.w. maybe you should make it possible to let people buy this kit in sections. Like get the body with legs and once there done playing with that, add the head and tail. Offcourse this hex is all about it’s overall looks including head and tail. But this would keep the cost down for starters. And buyers have options to increase there project/complexity by adding parts. Or even add custom heads, tails. Just an idea though
Again, great work!
Xan
Yup! The head rotate works much better than I thought it would.
Well for some reason there was a problem and not all of the holes were cut into the prototype mandible parts, so I wasn’t able to test the sensors yet. We will sort it out.
Yep I agree. We will offer the full kit and the basic hexapod walker, and offer the legs, mandibles, and abdomen separately.
STOP TEASING US JIM! When Jim? When? I want it now, now, now!
LM’s A-Pod is looking really beautiful… You can bet, like the Phoenix, I will be ordering bits and pieces of it!!!
I’ve always wanted a production version of Zenta’s beautiful creation, can’t wait!!!
Um… Looks like time for an update. lol
All of the parts have been designed, verified, ordered, and are in production now. We are only offering the ground contact tibia and are abandoning the non ground contact version. When the parts arrive we will start on assembly guides. We may offer it without instructions for the gurus out there while we work on tutorials for it. We have tested the chassis using Phoenix code. We have tested the mandibles using the Botboarduino Jr. board with the pressure sensor and it works great! I’ve got the liners for them too. Very soft and grippy. It can hold a full soda can easily without using much force.
I’m very pleased with how it’s coming together. This is a big project. The biggest delays were with me requiring several design revisions on some of the parts. I’m so happy with the way the ground contact switch is working that I have designed a straight “B” leg equivalent for the BH3-R, and am planning a “C” leg version as well.
thanks for the update Jim, it good to see you are making good progress with it and great to hear its in production. cant wait to see consumer video uploads of this beast. 8)
I’m so excited about this! I’ve been dreaming of it since I first saw Kåre’s first mentions of the apod, and the videos on youtube…
It’ll practically be a dream come true when I get to send you my savings and get to get started on the assembly!
Will there be a code package included, or are we expected to try and mimic Kåre’s epic movement codes completely on our own?
A-Pod update!
We have received the majority of the PVC structural components and should have them all in house in another week. The assembly guides for the legs and body are done. We should have the assembly guides for the mandibles and tail completed in a week or so. Packaging will start very soon. Optimistically we are still looking at three to four more weeks. Kåre has promised to help us with the code so we will have a PS2 version. Xbee is the best way to control it and we are working on that as well.
This is a really big project. Although it may not look like much is going on, we are working on it daily. So much work… 
Awesome! Thanks for the update!
I’m working on a VR control solution with two cameras and a pair of goggles and an accelerometer… Perhaps even 3G supported over an iPhone! We’ll see what the money and bandwidth possibilities permits…