Churchill Creations new animatronic kits and Step by Step instructions

[Churchill Creations]

Hi everyone, I haven't been on here for a while!

I've recently joined the 21st Century and bought a 3D Printer and Laser Cutter, as a result I've spent the last month or so redesigning my animatronic kits with the intention of printing them rather than traditional casting. This will mean a more accurate and simplified kit that is easier to build with the added ability to adjust components to cater for customers needs. Apart from 1:6 scale I also produce kits in 1:7, 1:5, 1:4, 1:3.5 and 1:3rd scale, mainly aimed at the model aircraft market. I also have a new laser cut pan & tilt base that replaces the old cast unit (see pics below).

Thanks to those lovely people at Photobucket I have lost all the pics from my how-to threads, I'm in the process of producing new versions that will be more intuitive, so please watch this space.

Many Thanks,
Sym.

[Paul Wills]

Very nice work Sym, what Servo controllers are you using now?

Paul.

[Churchill Creations]

Hi Paul, I hope you're well mate? I'm still using Pololu Maestro's as they're cheap and reliable, though I would like to find a card that you can simply program with variable servo speeds.

[Patrick Van Den Wyngaert]

Hy Sym,

any new updates about the "how to" movies on your website?
They are still"non excistant"

best regards,


Patrick.

[Churchill Creations]

Hi Patrick,

Sorry for the continued delay in sorting this out, I seem to have spent weeks on CAD drawing all the new parts and it's been chewing up all my time of late.

I think I'll try to upload the original pics into the old thread for now, but as I mentioned before I do eventually want to use grabs from CAD to produce a better tutorial as soon as time allows.

I am sorry for the delay my friend, I will upload over the next few days.

Kind Regards,
Sym.

[Patrick Van Den Wyngaert]

Hy Sym,

thank you very much for the info,and "good luck" with all the things you still have to finish my friend,

kind regards,


Patrick.

[Churchill Creations]

Thanks Patrick, I've finished the 1:6 kits at long last so I will look at adding the Forum How-To pics tomorrow.

[Churchill Creations]

I've finished drawing all the parts for the 1:6 animatronic kits at last and have started printing the first new kits.

[Churchill Creations]

After a lot of tweaking and adjusting the new kits are now ready to go, with the first few already sent.

My key consideration was to simplify the construction, with keyed body halves, parts that lock into place without adjustment or glue and ready-made pushrods to make the set-up childs play. An added advantage of this system is that all new figures will have exactly the same throws and positioning as each other, the benefit of this is I can now offer various downloadable programs for your controller card that will work on your figure as long as you centred the servos correctly.

Hopefully all this should mean the average modeller can assemble and program their animatronic conversion easily within an evening.

I'm also including more with each kit...

My 2 channel figures will come as standard with two universal arms and dummy bearings. The new universal arms now come with lateral rotation from the shoulder.

The 4 channel kits have a choice of either pointing or universal arms, the new pointing arms have a choice of linkage for either a point or raise forearm function.

[Tim Page]

Hi Sym, I am sure that these improvements will really help.
I've had one of your old kits part done for the last 12 months.

I will order one of the new kits now after Christmas in the hope that this will be completed a lot quicker.

Cheers
Tim

[florian rudolf]

Hello,
awesome kit. Do you have a page to looking for your offers?!
Regards
Florian

[Churchill Creations]

Hi Tim,

I know a lot of people found the old kits fiddly to build so I've really tried to simplify everything as much as possible with these. I'd be happy to throw in one of my new Pan & Tilt bases for free when you order as you've not finished your old kit.

Hi Florian,

I'm working on my new website over the Xmas break but you can still order through my old one. The pictures shown will be the old versions but you will be buying the latest kit instead.

www.churchillcreations.co.uk/animatronics.html

Thanks
Sym.

[Churchill Creations]

I've been playing with animation for my new animatronic instructions, hopefully with notes and narrative it should make the new kits simple to assemble!

[Churchill Creations]

You've got to love this software, I thought I'd try some rendered grabs of my CAD work, excellent results!

[Churchill Creations]

Hi Again,



A final update... After getting all my outstanding kits ready to ship last week I spent an evening fretting and eventually decided I really wasn't happy with the arm pushrods, so even though I had payed the shipping and dropped them at my colleagues for collection I pulled them all at the last minute.

After spending over a week trying to improve the design I have conceded and used a conventional ball joint and clevis' instead, these will come pre-assembled so the build time will not be increased by this decision. I'm determined to make these new kits a vast improvement over the old ones and the time involved in tweaking the design until I was happy has run away with me unfortunately. I totally underestimated the amount of work involved to get these ready to print to a standard of fit I would be happy with.



My sincere apologies with the continued holdup for those waiting for delivery, I really should have contacted you all about the decision but was convinced I could overcome the problem far quicker than it ended up taking. It just didn't work out as I had planned but the end result will be just as good if not better!



Anyhow, your kits are ready to send tomorrow or Tuesday depending on the courier collection, I'll forward tracking details when gone. Once again I can't apologise enough regarding the amount of time this has taken, if anyone has a query or needs help with their build I'm always happy to help.



Kind Regards,

Sym.