Hello guys,
I’ve been away for a long time but I have still been tinkering with designing and making aluminum robot heads. Just something I can’t seem to put down after all these years since the first idea hit my head. After 10 pieces, the last one was a success. I had to learn my way, making several mistakes and changing G-code to improve production speeds. I have included a picture of it. It’s still in its rough stage, I need to buff out the tool marks and do some blending.
The cad design:
Hi mike. welcome back.
Looks very nice.
I commend you and admire how you have continued with making these heads.
And its good to see a passion for such a project. Look forward to seeing more.
Nice job Mike!
Alan KM6VV
Did you get your red LED eyes made for them?
You can get LEDs made up on wires from the distributors.
Alan KM6VV
No red LEDs yet. I was planing on using HD foam cut to fit the eyes and then put LEDs in the foam.
That, or maybe some molding in wax and investment casting.
Alan KM6VV
Wow… nice and shiny… 
Now i look at that and say to myslef… that did take some time to do… 
It took about 30 to 40 minutes to polish 8 hrs to cut cnc. 
I never try 3d on my cnc… would like to try but my Gcode generator is only 2d
A group shot. The middle design is the one that started it all. It was the very first design that someone else cut for me (the famous bratinator skull). I liked it so much that I wanted to make more and try different designs.
I’m using Visual Mill 6.0 and Mach3. I’m very pleased with it, it has made my life so much easier. 
I will take a look at VisualMill soft…
Using Vectric Cut2d soft for GCode and EMC2 (LinuxCNC) for driving the CNC.
EMC2 is real good… (and free open source)
They’re looking very nice - they remind me of Bionicle Masks (if anyone remembers them :mrgreen:):
Nope. Where did you find them?
Alan KM6VV
Love it. Looks really nice. So will this now be followed by a body?
Oh Bionicles are really old now - it was a massive thing when I was about 8 I’d say; you could get bipeds, quadrupeds, etc. - they were like lego kits but more complicated and they couldn’t move so action figures in a way. :mrgreen:
They used to be an independent company but LEGO bought them out some years afterwards - the link should help better than my explanation:
bionicle.lego.com/en-us/gallery/default.aspx
Oh cute! I don’t remember them. But then I was a kid a long time ago.
Alan KM6VV
I bought a Bionicle, thinking that either I could use the parts to make robotic joints or study how they were put together in order to develop my own joints. My torso backbone was originally based on Bionicle joints, but the design ended up going in a different direction. They were available not too long ago, as my son (who is now 25) bought me an additional kit to study.
dj
I had sooooo many Bionicles, you wouldn’t believe it :mrgreen:! As a kid, I loved making things so I had my parents buy one each time a new series came out - it would be awesome if someone made a Bionicle-style biped.
