(Walter II is this year's "big project" going with me to Maker Faire NYC 2013)
In the style of the orginal Walter, I have built Walter II to be a desktop compainion. I may end up building a proper base for him, or I may just keep him on my desk to keep me company and read me my email. I dunno. Either way, he was a labor of love, requiring many hundreds of hours, an insane amount of math and hand-written notes, and a ton of patience.
Bevel gears on neck assembly. The timing belts can work in unison to tilt the head, or against each other to rotate.
Main gears for the lift of the main arm. This is basically just a lot of gearing to increase the strength of the stepper motors. The central axle is turned via chain drive from the steppers. This turns two pinion gears (attached to the main axle). These pinion gears turn the main gears which ride on bearings about 1/3 of the way down the arm. These main gears turn a smaller gear between them which, in turn, "climbs" its way along the teeth cut in the the center support.
The two sprockets you can see are allowed to turn freely on this main center axle and transfer power from the stepper motors to the neck assembly.
Chain drive for the main lift mechanism.
Here are all the stepper drivers and electronics. Two Arduino Nano's (each running Teacup firmware) control the steppers. One drives the neck (X/Y) and the second drives the main arm up and down (Z). A standard Arduino Uno feeds G-code via serial to the two Nano's. Also included is a Wii NunChuck connector that allows me to drive the mechanics manually via joystick and tilt.
Wow! I am just in awe of all the beautiful parts and movement. I have been wondering wether you had done any work on walter all this time, but man have you done work. Amazing job.
Incredible piece of work, my man… Chris you are truly a renaissance man! Tell me? What application did you use to design Walter II. And could you kindly share the formula for making bevel gears? I need to have parts replicated…
This is some amazing machining there Chris. I have two years of mechanical engineering and machining but are no way near your level . Great work. With this amount of spare time, your company must be doing great Best of luck with the rest of Walter
Man, I wake up to my email exploded with messages about this one. I appreciate the kind words, everyone.
@Glena --Can’t wait to see you at Maker (I’ll try to remember you are Glen A. (not Glenna)) :)
Ok, the eyes… I wish I had a more spectacular answer for this one but alas, it is not as cool as anyone wants it to be… Its a battery. That’s it. Walter II was built almost specifically for Maker and thus, KISS was really important. I was thinking about cameras and facial tracking and Processing etc. etc. etc. --At the end of the day, I went with “more blink, less think” and stuck with the plain-Jane blinky eyes.
For the record, the eyes are 2 blinkM’s, pre-programmed for stand-alone use, and simply do random colors. They are powered by one 3.7v AAA li-ion battery in the head. That’s it!
Oh, and the eyes themselves are 1/2 ping-pong balls, but are inverted. They curve to the inside of the head allowing one to view the eyes at any angle.
I’ve watched you for several years now and you continue to impress me with your ever improving skills! I wish you the best with your new company!
One thing though, I think it might be time you change your nick name from “Chris the Carpenter” to something more fitting you your new and ever improving skill set. I think maybe its best for other robot enthusiasts to come up with some recommendations!
I’ll look for you (and Walter II) at MakerFair 2013!
Chris should keep his nick. We love him on the bases of his merits not on his nick. There are way too many users with extravagant nicks like RobotGod, RobotMaster, ElectronicsGuru (no offence if anyone has these nicks). Chris started out humble as Chris the Carpenter over the years he has learnt and evolved into something more, always sharing his experience for us to learn.
great work ctc…i remember how you helped me when iam in need of android app for my first project then i couldn’t be in touch with you but i take this as a chance to thank you. best of luck for your maker fair.
