Moving Little Guys (Anamatronics)

[John Clarke]

Hi all
It's probably been done, but I promised Churchill that if I got round to building the little guys, I would show the build.
I brought three kits last year, two for me and one for Joe, a Comet owner.
In my a pinion a must have.
I built one kit, but made a few small mods which were improved on the second kit, which is shown here piece meal, while I sort out the pictures and finalize the little guys mounting in the newly finished off King Tiger.



Parts of the second kit with first completed kit.



On the neck pivot I fitted a small piece of tube as a small bearing improving the pivoiting action. The drive rod is glued to the tube when put together.

The small neck tilt servo is fitted. I found that all eight servo's required could be brought for under £20 on ebay if you were prepared to wait for them to come from China about 3 weeks.


All servos fitted, three were screwed into position, but the neck turn has had to have the lug removed from one side. This servo I glue in with cheap expoxy resin (pound land) the cheap glue allows you to remove stuff at a later date if required if something goes wrong. It has a good hold but will not put up much of a fight if it has to come apart. I use it in a few places where strength is not required.

All the wiring comes though the front of the body. this section has to be cut from the body to allow the servos to fit.


The arms, I think this is the main mod I made with the kit. The original is supplied with pieces of tube that I thought could have fitted better, although the instructions did say glue their supplied parts to the bearings. They also used a fold in the tube to produce a pivot arm. which I did'nt like on the first kit. I used the un used servo arms from the new servos to produce a much better pivot arm (my opinon) I glued (the strong stuff) a nut into some scrap tube that fitted nicely though the bearing trimming the servo arm so that it fitted over the tube and then screwed the arm to the tube and fitted to the figure arms. One pivioting arm is supplied, One has to be sourced, A cheap action man volenteered. With a bit of carving just the job. I would have hated to have cut up a perfectly good dragon figure. To be continued,

[Maarten Schutjes]

Interesting! Thanks!

[John Clarke]

Part 2


Before mounting the arm/bearings, on both front and back mouldings, I carved out as much material as possible around the bearing mountings to allow free movement for the pivot/crank arms. I also removed a large section of the back panel for maintenance. The arm bearings were glued in with strong glue in the front moulding as far out as possible to allow for clothing movement when dressed. The neck hole was opened up a little in both front and back mouldings to allow more neck movement.

On this churchill build there is an extra arm function that allows the forearm to straigten out when the left arm is operated, rather like pointing. Your given a ball joint connector and bits to make this but I found it was too weak and too much gluing was required, so I substituted my own ball and socket which was screwed and glued for strength.
The servo city unit can be programmed for four servo movement with loop but it's hard to control more than two servos at once continuous while recording the movements. So I opted for the Pololu Maestro, A clever little Program logic controller, costing just over £20 which gives smooth animated movements for six servos. once I got my head round the programming I could run a loop of program in 10 minutes. more later.
The back moulding was glued on with cheap epoxy just in case it had to be removed at a later date for maintenance.


The hard bit, choosing and dressing the build. A struggle as I did'nt want to cut the clothes. The head was warmed up with boiling water to make it more flexable to fit on to the neck piece.

Mounted on a plate to be fitted to the turret roof. To be continued

[John Fitzsimons]

Thanks for posting . How did you manage the jackets. I was wondering how I would get them on.

[John Clarke]

Hi to all
Well John, I did say it was the hardest part, First there's the choice of clothing. once the clothes are on I did't want to take them off. Then there was the getting them on without ripping an arm off or tearing the cloth. The hands and head were left off, the right arm was allowed to flex and after much **** words, all was well.
Rolling up the right sleeve allowed the the elbow to be lightly glued, shirt sleeve ends will be added later to cover the wrist joints.


The servo program control board is very small and was fitted into small box with switch and battery supply lead. At the moment it is manually switched on, but can easly be converted to R/C control.
Originally I was going to have two control units for each body, having the normal four servo controls and an added waist servo for body turn. But, first I found the waist turn did'nt look right and there are too many things on the turret for the body to hit, secondly the loaders hatch restricts any movement other than head and neck. So I went for the single controller, four servo's in the commander and two in the loader. Turning and fixing the bodies as if in conversation to each other looking more natural, a single controller keeps everything in sync.
Programing the controller is pretty easy but I did keep it simple, If you write a short script before you begin of what you want the little guys to perform, it makes it easy to form a good little loop of about 110 steps.
Acting out the movements gives you a feel of what you can achive. For example, when you look through binoculars before or after, you might pause with them just below your line of view to make sure your looking in the right direction, adding the realisum.
The controller can control the speed of each servo during each step, I set all the servos at a about 15% which generated smooth slow movements. You have to remember to allow the servos time to reach their set positions at that speed, with each step taking about 0.5 second. By copying of the same step, say two to three times, allows a time interval to take place before moving onto the next set position in the program. Sounds a bit complicated and there's probably better ways to do it in the software, but thats how I did it.


The whole control unit is small and sits nicely in the back of the turret.
To be continued

[John Clarke]

Right, last edition

The little guys are mounted on a scrap piece of alloy plate elevated slightly for the commanders hatch, It's bolted to the underside of the turret lid, painted black to hide it away. Access is pretty good in the KT and lots of extras can be stored in the back of the turret. If your wondering why the blank firer is covered with clipped bag, it's to reduce any nasties being exhausted into the turret.
The pictures below show different head and arm positions while running though the loop program.
The end.
Just need some decent weather to take the little guys out now.
There you go, Churchill my word is my bond.

[Tim Bowman]

Hi John

Thanks for posting the photos. Nice mod on the head pivot connection.

best regards
Tim

[Adrian Harris]

I spent quite a while trying to get a PICAXE chip to run some of these figures but it's difficult to make them run at different speeds - otherwise they look too robotic.

The Pololu Maestro seemed to take care of much of that, making the movements much more realistic.

Can't wait to see your guys in action..

Adrian.

[John Fitzsimons]

Great job. I like the bag on the firer. I had discussed that before with Yves. Thought the filter bag material used on some vacuum cleaner motors might work.

[John Clarke]

Hi John,
The bag is made from an old battery cover from an electric wheel chair, It's thick and reasonably fire proof.
That there KT your doing looks mean, you'll have to show us your efforts when you get your little guys sorted.
If anyone can shed some light on posting moving pictures in a simple format, I'll stick some movie on the forum. I tried with photobucket once, but managed to open up all the albums showing stuff with no relevance to the subject.

[Churchill Creations]

Looking good there John, lets see some video.Interesting mods, it's always good to hear another persons perspective otherwise you can get tunnel vision.

I've improved the quality of the mouldings since you originally bought your kits, together with making the front and back body mouldings into a complete torso to allow for legs.

Might have also found some new servos to use for the arms that are not as deep as the MG90's. This means that you don't need to cut the belly out any more. I've built a couple of them now using these and so far everything seems fine.

Cheers,
Sym.

[John Clarke]

Hi Sym,
It's a good product, the neck system is very good. I see from the kit, you have made mods to the supplied parts too, ball joints and crank arms etc. Just like I did.
With legs too now. the little guys will be getting out and about.
Lets hope we don't get into the realms of Major Chip Hazard and his mates
A step too far?

[Tim McCarthy]

Great write up John
Great looking figures very motivational
Major Chip Hazard any thing else is but a toy

[Churchill Creations]

Great minds and all that John...

Now Small Soldiers would be a laugh, I'm converting a Jack Sparrow figure at the moment and have his eyes moving via a 1.6gm linear servo in his head, it's getting closer and closer!

Sym.