that looks really cool. I am very impressed with the custom fab work and how well it ifts with the mic and range sensors. who machined the skull? they did great work whoever it was.
A friend I met on another forum did the machine work. He has his own machine shop. He did a fantastic job considering the small size of this thing. The photos shows every scratch from the camera flash so it looks better in real life. I have also added a few new scratches just from handeling it and sliding it around on my desk. 
perhaps the next one you have made can be buffed and hard anodized to resist the scratch thing. It is quite abrasion resistant and also makes a pretty decent electrical isolation if thick enough, not to mention coming in a variety of colors. 
Very Nice looking head …
I cant want to see the pics with the head on the bot.
Bracket looks good too …
I am thinking about custom leg pieces for my Spider … this makes me want to take extra care in doing so they look really good.
Thanks malatory,
It’s a great feeling having an idea become a reality. Although I did not machine the bot head, it’s still 100% my own design. I would love to be able to machine my own designs, but then that would mean taking time away from designing new stuff.
I say go for making your own stuff, just make sure you think of everything. With my bot head, I did not make the the hole for the cable wires large enough as one example. It’s the little detals that can creep up on you. 
Well I am finally back from New Hampshire after a week. I had a very bad time this trip because of canceled flights, rental car etc… Well When I got home today, I had my expected Ping sensor waiting for me. Since I am so worn out with my trip, I only de-soldered the elements and soft leaded the terminals. I will finish tomorrow and test to see if there is any significant performance problems. I took one picture of them sitting in the eye sockets loosely. The picture is a little out of focus, but I’m to tired to mess with a better picture. At least the picture will show the general final look of the bot head.
Man - that is some work. That thing looks like it will be spitting fire soon. Very cool indeed
Chris
Well even though I am dead tired, I still find myself up and messing around. Therefore, I have provided another picture of the under side showing the soldered sensors. Where is that coffee? 
Sensors still need epoxy
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/9987/pingunder4pb.jpg
mike where in new hampshire where u? thats right up my ally
btw, the head looks, SIIICCCKKKK
My hotel was in Ports Mouth.
Hi Jim,
Nice design on that bracket.
How about making it available to everyone?
If you standardize the four mounting holes that should be ok.
Hell - anything with the SES hole pattern on it we’d probably buy…
Nice lookin’, Mike!
Oh, btw, you should keep that coffee out of your bot’s reach.
His eyes are bugging out a bit.
Well the test results are in.
My original idea of having the ping sensors mounted flush in the eye sockets was a failure. My results were 0 inches no matter where I pointed the sensors. Lucky for me, I was able to remove the sensors before the epoxy had time to fully set. Had I waited just one more hour, I would have been to late. While runing the ping demo program, I moved the sonar sensors forward until I was able to get accurate readings. I found a location where they work just as good as if they were mounted on the boad. Unfortunately there are now gaps behind the sensors. I will see if I can dress it up with some kind of filler to cover the gaps.
Well the good news is, if anyone was wondering if the ping sensor would work with the elements wired (soft leaded) to the board with around 20 inches of wire. and have it perform just as good, this is now proven to work. Indeed the ping sensor can have it’s sonar elements desoldered, and then re-soldered with lengths of wire. The only limitation is there can NOT be any structure in front of, or in my case, between the sensors. You can have roughly 1/8th of an inch extend beyond the sensors rim and still have it work.
If I ever have another bot head made, I will need to have the eye sockets drilled only as deep as the sensors themselves to avoid the ‘Gap’ issue.
Just guessing here, but I wonder if the problem with flush-mounting the sensors is that the ultrasonic ‘ping’ easily travels through the aluminum, thus making the range seem to be near-0. That is, by mounting them that way, you created an alternate (shorter) path for the ping to travel through.
If that’s the case, maybe some ‘insulation’ around the sensors would fix it (perhaps a layer of cloth, or a thin paper tube, like used with model rockets?).
Or, a useful experiment would be to take a chunk of 2 X 4 and bore two holes in it, and try out different mounting positions in those holes. You might find that with wood, there is no problem at all (because it’s a poor conductor of sound).
Pete
That head looks pretty sweet.
That’s interesting. I did not think about the aluminum. I was orginally going to use rubber cement to glue in the sensors but I did not have any on hand so I used epoxy. You might be right about the material causeing interfearance, unfortunetly its to late, I alread have the suckers epoxied in.
Here is a picture of the sensors mounted in the front position to allow the sensors to function. Notice the gap behind the sensor. I was thinking of using a piece of wire loom to put inside the head to fill in this gap. I may just leave it as is. Any suggestions?
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/6365/pingsideview0bn.jpg
Here is a Pic of the front view:
Here are some pictures of trial use of black construction paper, borrowed from my kids.
whew, mike, wat kinda money you spend on that paper?
I like it open I think the bare solder joints and wires add to the terminator fear factor sort of deal