NZEOD

Vulcans arrived this morning! Now for the magnifying glass to build them!

...and... the airbrush has crapped out! Blowing air into the paintpot

Wishing my imagination and ambition matched my talent some days... assembled the tomahawk with all the lighting this time and its busy! Not going to add a torso twist servo to this one but will on the second tomahawk. Assembled the missile launcher (SRM6 for you Battletech/MWO players) and realised I could make the hatches open and close... Either an arm inside the launcher with a flexiacutator cable snaked back into the body for the servo or a tiny solenoid or the craziest way would be an electromagnet that repels the doors to open them and attracts them to close. The house is fare too small for a serov or wormdrive to be fitting directly inside the launcher.

VBL, FENNK and BOXER are they are designed with NBC attacks in mind. Hence why I chose them. None of them will survive vacuum outside the vehicle though. They wont survive zero degrees kelvin either. And the worse oversight would be the Engines requiring oxygen to run. They stop so does the generators. My background is as a Microbiologist before joining the NZ Army Ammo Techs and IEDD Unit

In all honesty in this day and age of darker shows like Jessica Jones, Generation Kill and so on with less holliwood and more reality I wish they could do a Macross that was like Yukikaze. No clowns, no over the top rubbish, no singing, no sex fetishes, just realistic soliders fighting realistic scenarios.

Heading along tonight with the wife... looking forward to it.

Arent they devils horns... not ears! This was a good first series but Jessica Jones seriously stepped up the game in being dark and gritty and believable. Heres hoping they can keep that momentum. And I guess from her comments about having to be called The Camel Toe if she wore the Jewel suit, its not going to make an appearance ... ever.

I'll be up arming the IFVs with anti Mecha weapons like 30mm and up Autocannons, Missiles and M61 Gatling systems. I've avoided Tank main guns as after watching the Jordan desert fight on Transformers you can see how slow and out matched a large calibre single shot weapon is vs Mecha. So the Israeli/Russian led Anti UN forces will be fielding Merkavas, T90s and Terminators while the UN Marine and UN Spacy support units will use more high rate of fire weapons and faster vehicles like LAVs and pretty much nothing tracked. Given how the story goes that the Destroids are the new tank, they dont need any MBTs now. I've gone with the idea the UN Marines are based off the Regiment Combat Teams and using more Euro equipment as the US and Asian UN Members were tied up with Overtech development. All the equipment with have similar euro style camo including the UN Marine Destroids and Valks as they will be primarily used to combat the Anti UN forces on Terra Firma while the UN Spacy/UN Navy units will be more USA/Japanese based in look and organization and be thinking towards whats expected to arrive soon from beyond the solar system. Obviously the lack of info on the UN Marines would be down to the low survival rates of the units on the ground when the SDF-1 folded to Pluto. Any surviving units were absorbed into the UN Spacy forces. No amount of training will have an IFV buttoned up and ready for instantaneous travel from down town Macross Island to High Orbit Pluto.

Got sidetracked tonight looking for some Ground vehicles to go with the Destroids and Valks in the city fights. Short list is the Panard VBL as a recon unit with the UN Marines. The Fennek as the alternative The GTK Boxer as the IFV

Bench drill press and the diamond needle point on the Dremel. The one on the left in the photo. With the Diamond bits you need to have some throw away metal as well, I use an old flat blade screwdriver. you have to run it against the tip every time you get a build up of melted styrene otherwise the accumulated styrene will start making bigger holes and also flinging off and sticking to things on the part. Then if its needed I use the cutter. I then clean things up with an Xacto knife to deburr the holes. You just need to have the dremel on a low speed to chew and not melt and a steady hand to avoid the cutting tip "walking".

You can get both games in a newly remasters pack on steam. Think its what kicked off this mod again.

Progress tonight Tomahawk beam cannon and searchlight lenses poured and test wiring.

Tonights progress. Tomahawk LED Lenses poured for the Beam Cannons and Searchlight. Then test wired to make sure everything works so far. Thats about 1/4 intensity... And primer paint on the nails...

hmmm isnt it just.... and easy to mount in the Tomahawk arms. The issue is the type of laser diode you'd need is a class IIIb laser and so is NOT a toy, should NEVER be used without the corresponding wavelength Laser Safety Eyewear and needs a focus defocus lens set up so you can apply the safety on it. Even off reflected surfaces it will still destroy things. We've made them before in the bomb hanger but that doesnt mean you SHOULD make them. Its a bit like mounting a .22 on a drone, you can but should you? But yes... a Glaug or Tomahawk mounting IIIb lasers in a dusty darkened room would be cool. Especially melting Gundams to slag.

I'd love to be able to mount weapons in them but no.... Maybe some old CRTV cathode tubes for some wood burning or some Bluray lasers for balloon popping!

Working on the Tomahawk tonight while I wait for the new smaller servos to arrive. Beam cannons both have a Neopixel LED unit in the last ring before the muzzle. The muzzle will then be filled with clear resin to form a lens like I do in the VF Superpack nozzles only a lot bigger. This will magnify the LED and should make for an interesting display when the LED "fires". The Beam LEDs will not flash but power up over a few seconds, fading up in intensity and colour from a deep purple to a Blue at about half intensity then flash to Blue White at max intensity (which is almost blinding without the lens!) to simulate charging up and firing. Then they will go from orange to red to fade out to simulate barrel heat. The biggest chest guns also have an LED and the base of each barrel and will flash Intense White/Yellow like conventional weapons. The Spotlight has a Neopixel and resin lens and will be lit like an HID light. When the motion detector triggers the Arduino sequence, the weapon arm targeters will come on first (love to use a low power red dot laser but not worth the risk to viewers) then the torso will swing as the spotlight powers up, followed by the gun fire sequence then the reverse but the spotlight going off last. In the photos are the Tomahawk which only arrived at work today, the hollowed out Defender body, one of the four Carrier decks I'm working one with an ardruino Neopixel control board, a servo control board and one of the micro servos that's still too big for the Defender! Even with all the wiring through the legs and arms, they can all still be moved and posed.... so far. Everything is still test fitted only and not glued together or mounted properly. All in good time. These pics show how the connection is made between the model and the diorama base where the Arduino boards and 5v power supply will be hidden. The VFs only needed 3 pins, one hidden in each landing gear wheel as they only have Neopixel lighting. One +5V, one GRND, one Data In line. The destroids get a whole lot messier when you start adding mixed servos and motor drives, neopixles and standard LEDs. So each foot has a 10pin connector for 20 lines into the units.

Those are the figures from the abomination that is the tabletop wargame Robotech Tactics. Warhammer 40K figure sized.

This is more the size differences between Zent/Meltrandi and Human machines I was thinking... Although the Regults need to be a bit bigger.

It looks fine. Mix the coloured with standard and you'll get a more realistic look. Not every view port will be as bright that way.

Given the failure incidents werent due to the wing surface area or lifting capabilities thats a red herring to claim its an exaggeration

nope Electronics and engineering yes but that's all military related

The F-104 Starfighter had almost pointless wings and that flew fine.

Hahah space is SUPER tight inside the Defender now!! I've dremeled as much as I dare of excess material out of the inside of the body and still have to switch from $3.95USD micro servos to $30USD digital Sub micro servos just to get the servo heights to under 18mm. So now I have a 6mm motor driving the radar at the rear in continuous rotation at 100rpm, the same style motors, one in each arm spinning the Vulcans at 1000rpm, the Hitech HS5035HD Nano servo driving the torso rotation leaving the issue of the arm raising and lowering to solve... Probably with another nano servo ... somehow... http://hitecrcd.com/products/servos/micro-and-mini-servos/digital-micro-and-mini-servos/hs-5035hd-digital-ultra-nano-servo/product That servo is as of right now, THE ABSOLUTE smallest servo you can buy off the shelf. Digital servos are more convenient for Arduino programming and control that conventional analog ones and you can set end points and soft starts (so it doesnt jerk into motion but it more human in movement) as well as the speed it moves and flash those parameters to the servo with a PC. The next major hurdle is the wiring. Using ribbon cable I would need to route it though the legs and into the chest. THis will be... interesting... to achieve at the leg to hip joint as its exposed and then up into the upper torso while still allowing the torso to twist 90° to 120°.... the alternative is to run enameled wire instead but the digital servos will be power hungry so the bigger the gauge wire the better. THe single strand enameled wires could then be spun in a drill to make into a braid and then not be so noticable BUT... will be a nightmare to match up. I need: 2 wires to the radar motor 2 wires to the left weapon 2 wires to the right weapon 3 wires to the torso twist servo 3 wires to the arm servo or 6 if I run one servo per arm 3 wires for the chest floodlights 2 wires for the arm weapon targetting LEDs (these can be daisy chained) So 17 to 20 wires... in each foot I have a 10pin connector to jack into the Diorama base to power everything. 10 wires up each leg is the goal.

Amazingly simple system too. All cam driven bolt locking, Firing pin unlocking and extraction. So in theory you could fire one by hand just by rotating the barrel. Barrels on the Master Models one are not drilled out. So no firing lighting effect for now. Also they aren't very long at 39mm. Defender Mk X twin cannons are 60mm long so I'm hoping thiese smaller Rotary cannons will still have "Stage Presence" and wow factor. Really good customer service as I sent some questions in to them yesterday and had all the answers from them in Poland sitting in my email this morning!

unfortunately they only do the GUA-8 tip and not the whole barrel assembly.