Does Not Compute - WIP

Gary Dahlström
Driven by a desire to have a snarky robot companion, I'm going to stuff a bluetooth reciever into a B9. I'm hoping I can use one channel of output to drive the voice LED on the chest.
This has the promise of being a very cool build, with a bit of utility added. Bonus if i can get my teenage daughters to edit some audio so I can have him tell a few off-color jokes or insults.
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Mike Szwarc
Nice! With the PE parts and seamless glass dome, you should end up with a great-looking B9. Interesting idea, using a Bluetooth receiver! 👍 I have one I salvaged from a set of headphones. Now I just have to come up with a project to use it in.

Gary Dahlström
LOL - i can use the other speaker pin to drive an LED. The effect right now is analog, i.e., the LED dims with voltage drops from full volume, but watching a few videos of Dr. Smith and the robot insulting each other (lol) it seems like the original effect was more digital, probably because the guy inside was just pressing a button while he says his lines. It seems like one 3mm or 5mm red LED will suffice. I could also use an arduino to read the voltage and turn the light on and off, but I'm not sure the effect is worth the added complexity. BTW, the bluetooth board was only 12 USD, and has an onboard amp to drive the speaker. One the speaker is mounted inside, it should sound pretty good.
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Mike Szwarc
What about looking into using a 555timer? I'm just learning electronics, so I'm not sure if this would work, but if you used the other speaker pin to input a signal to a 555timer set up in bistable mode, it might act as the "guy inside" pressing a button, and the digital output of the 555 would then switch the LED on and off.

Greg Baker
Oh, heck yeah! I'm in!

Gary Dahlström
This is such a good idea I'm gong to breadboard up a flip-flop circuit! Much will depend on whether or not I want some random LED effects on the rest of the robot. IIRC the dome lights blink somewhat randomly, and the panel of LEDs at the belly seem to do the same. I'll just have to spend some time watching LiS TOS. Thanks Mike!

JD
Warning! Danger! Count me in! I just got my first breadboard starter kit today with lots of leds, and fiber optics are on the way. Can't wait to get started learning how to light my models! Thanks for the inspiration Gary! How exciting!

Tom ...
In! Remember, GIGO!

Tom Beighley
This makes me think there might actually be a use for Amazon Alexa. blog.arduino.cc/2019..-cloud-in-7-minutes/

Gary Dahlström
Decided that after a bit if an issue with the BoP, it was time to get cracking on my sidekick. Opened the box, kit looks nice. The glass dome is a real beauty. Dry fitted the torso together and made a small wood mount for the speaker. Determined what needed to be drilled out for the 'mouth' will have to fab a box to mount and diffuse the two tiny surface mount LEDs behind and below the clear lens. Speaker sounds great inside the body, will be even better when the parts are glued up and the driver is actually screwed into the mount. Will probably face it downward and use the grills in the lower torso to let the sound out. That may mean deleting some clear parts there.

Mounting the belly LEDs looks like it will be straightforward, leaks will be the biggest problem to solve. The 'brain' dome will present the biggest challenge. I can probably gang 4 or five white LEDs in there. Getting the wires down to the the torso will involve either replacing the brain stem with some styrene tubing or discreetly running the wires down the back of the stem and maybe camouflaging them with some shrink tubing.

I still have to sit thru a few episodes of LiS to figure a good pattern for the brain and belly LEDs.

Changing the audio mouth LEDs to digital with a 555 timer presented one problem; it stayed mostly on unless there was a hard silence in the audio. Bluetooth always seems to carry some noise, and even at low volume it's enough to just light the LED and keep it on. I think the analog effect has more character, and I get nice pauses in the illumination:
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Gary Dahlström
@Tom - beyond playing old radio shows and the BBC, this is about the only useful feature:
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Mike Szwarc
👍 👍 👍 You may have to change your sidekick's name from B9 to Friday. Guess the voltage drop between sound and no sound isn't enough to reliably trigger the 555. I agree the analog effect has character. The fading on and off of the LED mimics the natural modulation of the voice.

Gary Dahlström
I love opening a new kit and immediately begin drilling holes and cutting out big chunks of styrene!
Started fashioning a box to house the mouth LEDs. The clear part that covers the mouth is a bit odd in that it's not a solid piece of plastic, but instead is a single bead of styrene that switchbacks on itself 6 or 7 times. The result is there are gaps in the part. I may need to put a transparent backing to better diffuse the light. I'll illustrate with pics later. Today I need to focus on motivating the kids on the first day of school, and get that Bird of Prey mounted up. Oh yeah, and work.....yeah, work. :|

Gary Dahlström
Happy days...major project at work complete, boss headed on vacation for a couple weeks, then I'm going to use some time off. I foresee plenty of bench time in the coming weeks. Getting back to the B9, the mouth assembly looks real good, now tackling the belly LEDs. I had to fashion a small styrene interior mount with the holes pretty precisely drilled to get the LEDs properly aligned with the existing holes on the torso.
I now have to look at the current random blinking pattern and tie a couple of pairs to the same output pin on the arduino. I need to do this to reserve a few pins for the brain lights and button lights. I'm not sure how I should treat the middle tier of square lights - I may backlight them to shine thru the decals that get applied there. I also have to *very carefully* cut the existing clear part to get rid of the bottom half to make room for these lights.

Does anyone have experience cutting a clear parts? should I go with a razor saw or my mini circular saw?
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Gary Dahlström
Got the belly lights installed, making headway on the brain lights.
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Gary Dahlström
The brain/head is just about done...hopefully everything stays nice and square as the epoxy kicks overnite.

Torsten
Very interesting, follow, great work😎

Slavo Hazucha
Definitely not my territory, my skills & understanding reached a wall several stages earlier... But really cool to follow! 🙂 👍

Gary Dahlström
Test fitting the shoulders onto the torso. It's coming together. I had to excise some heat shrink to get the head wires routed past the speaker, but it looks like i have a decent fit now.

Much of the time I've been working on this I've had the speaker playing, but I naturally have to unplug everything for final assembly. I miss my robot buddy bringing me the BBC World Service.

Thomas Espe
Wow, looks really cool, will follow!

Gary Dahlström
My buddy is back! I knew it was going to be close; the Arduino micro didn't have quite enough current to drive all the LEDs at once, so switched to a standard Uno. I can now glue up the torso and get to work on the legs.
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Gary Dahlström
The Uno fits perfectly in his pants, and allows me easy access and plenty of space to coil the extra wire. I had to dig back thru the bottom of the torso to retrieve a looped wire. Torso is all glued up now.
I'm driving it with a 6v Radio Shack wall wart; I may hardwire it to the board. Arms and claws are next. The tracks/wheels needed a good bit of seam work. A little more wet sanding and I think they're ready to prime & paint.
The plan is to plug all the headers into the board in and then drop it into the pants. The seal between the torso and belt *might* be tight enough not to need glue. The Bluetooth wires will run thru the leg and the board will sit in one of the feet. I'm going to power the b-tooth and Arduino independently so i can switch off the LEDs for everyday use.

Cheers!

Tom
This is great! 👍

Gary Dahlström
Uh oh...just discovered an empty runner and 2 missing parts - one pair of claw retainers. Hopefully Moebius will make good on this...

Gary Dahlström
Getting close to final hookup and dropping the torso onto the pants. Will be calling Moebius in a bit to ask about sending me those missing bits.

Mike Szwarc
👍 👍 👍

Gary Dahlström
B9 as a Wrigley pitch man:
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Gotta figure what to do about those claw retainer parts; if Moebius can't supply what's missing I'll have to make a pair from the ones i have. Annoying. Hence I haven't mounted the arms yet. A few more details and some touch up before setting him in the corner of my workbench to await arms.

Best to All!

Tom ...
Ha, looks and sounds brilliant! Exceptional work, Gary!

Gary Dahlström
So it's been a few days, and still nothing from Moebius customer support. I'm thinking of just calling Pegasus Hobbies, who now owns Moebius. Anyone have a similar experience with this company?

Daniel Klink
Stunning!! 👍

Gary Dahlström
Thanks Daniel, but it can't hold a candle to that awesome Heinkel you're working on. I gotta go make a witty comment on that thread...
For me, this is just an interesting appliance for my workbench. There are a few seams and details that frankly I'm not going to chase - it's going to live on my bench, a high traffic area, and is really just for me to catch up on the BBC or listen to old radio shows while I build. I really want to get on to my next project.

I just had a *really* interesting interaction with Moebius CS. I'll spare the details, but yeah, they're gonna step up & send out a pair of claw retainers.

I'm trying to assemble some audio from the LiS TOS for a demo video. Not surprisingly, there is an Alexa skill devoted to Dr. Smith's insults directed at the B9; sadly, no similar skill exists for the robot's own sarcastic retorts.

Best to All...

Gary Dahlström
Quick update - Missing parts otw from Moebius. Been sidelined with another eyelid thing, getting it cut tomorrow; hopefully vision in that eye will improve quickly. I did start the AMT American LaFrance Aero Chief kit. Will post progress in another thread.

Cheers