T08A2 / R3000 spider lightweight tank (from GITS)

[PauliusLiekis]

I started working on T08A2 / R3000 spider tank from Ghost In The Shell movie a year ago. For those who haven't seen the movie - I would highly recommend, it's one of the best sci-fi anime movies.



Scale 1:20 (roughly )

One of the biggest problems that I had from the start was non existence of blue prints, or actually anything that would be close to that. That's why scale is approximate So for "blueprints" I ended up with a few things:

• Screenshots from the movie
• Smaller resin model from ebay, which isn't proper quality
• Someone made a 3D model, which I managed to aquire. It isn't very accurate, I would say it follows movie almost...

So yeah, none of these were precise. Actually, even frames from the movie sometimes contradict itself. To make matters worse I wanted to make a model which could move, so following sizes and strength of mechanical components had to be taken into consideration as well...

Initial idea was to make the shell from a styrofoam, but during last year I bought a 3D printer, which came very handy when making these complex shapes.

 

[PauliusLiekis]

This is almost complete frame (except "arms"/weapons) and close to complete electronics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu7gaKglD3A

Motion is controlled by RaspberryPi. Programming in C++, from scratch. It is controlled with PS3 joystick, but there are plan to have some autonomous functionality.

 

[PauliusLiekis]

A little bit from inside the "brain" of the robot:



The robot has full model of itself (in order to do correct simulation) and it's calculating where to make steps in such way that legs do not collide.

 

[PauliusLiekis]

A little bit from work progress:

Model in 3dsMax:


Model in 3D printing program:


Model in 3D printing program (after slicing):


Printed parts:


Here should be some screenshots of work with sanding paper and acetone, because that's a big part of 3D printing, but about that some other time

Assembly of electronics (2x servos, 1x laser):


Hiding of cables inside the ammunition belt:




Painting of base color and assembly:

 

[Wolf Star]

Outstanding!

 

[Quaralane]

3d printing can definitely make things easier to do

 

[PauliusLiekis]

3d printing can definitely make things easier to do

Absolutely! I would like to have more precise printer, because at the moment there is a lot of work with sanding paper, acetone and putty Of course even with good printer I would have to do the same, but a bit less of it

Anyway, it's a real helper when you need to build a bunch identical intricate shapes.

Actually for moving models (robots, planes, boats, etc) it would make much more sense to have good CNC that can cut styrofoam You need much lighter parts for these.

 

[PauliusLiekis]

While other bake cookies for Xmas, I bake robot parts

 

[PauliusLiekis]

A short video from testing of arms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9P47HHAg6g

 

[PauliusLiekis]

Wiring complete!

• 2x Raspberry Pi mirco computers (1st for motion control, 2nd for face tracking)
• 28x Servos (18 for legs, 4 for body, 6 for weapons)
• 1x Camera (for face tracking)
• 3x Servo drivers
• 2x Lasers (how can you have a robot wittout lazors??!!! )
• 1x Distance sensor
• 1x PS3 controller

...and some armor:

 

[Quaralane]

Looks like the work you're putting into this is paying off

 

[Mikey_W_1980]

This is frakking awesome so far!!

Loving your work!

 

[PauliusLiekis]

A little bit more of progress on the legs:



3D printing:



Polishing (i.e. reducing visibility of 3D printing slices by sand paper and acetone; acetone also gives strength):



Assembling:



Puttying (is that a word? ) (hiding marks of 3D printing even further):



Painting:



Result:


"Suspension" of toes:


I hope to finish main body and the I'll be able to attach the legs. I hope that everything will work once cables are connected (fingers crossed ) Otherwise I'll have to disassemble (read: break) and redo some parts ) The original plan was to have ability to disassemble, but that was too complicated, so I skipped that part

 

[Quaralane]

Some excellent progress here.
Makes me wish I could afford a 3d printer right now

 

[Cave_Dweller]

Very professional results here. I'm with Quaralane, you're making some awesome stuff with that 3d printer and the RC stuff, amazing!

 

[PauliusLiekis]

Thank you!

3D printers are not that expensive right now and they are getting cheaper. My one (da Vinci by XYZprinting) is only $500 on Amazon. I bought it with a friend to share, so you can halve that price.

Actually for RC it would make more sense to CNC parts from harder polystyrene, because 3D printed parts are too heavy. So yeah, I wish I owned that

 

[DJSLY74]

Very nice work , I will follow closely, I love the series GITS

 

[PauliusLiekis]

Thanks everyone!

One of the most complicated parts: it's time to cover main-body to which all legs are attached:


The optimistic plan was to print it from a couple of parts:


Problem #1: printer shifts all layers by ~1cm sometime during printing. It still did in a different place when printing flipped part, although the problem was smaller, so I just fixed it by slicing printed part into two and gluing it together in correct place:.


I subdivided the remaining parts into smaller parts before printing in order to avoid same problems during print:


Problem #2: I could not assemble robot using these parts - there was no way to fit sphere in the middle through other parts once everything is assembled. I had to cut it into smaller pieces and attach these parts separately.


Problem #3: first design mistakes: my virtual project had no screws, so when I tried to fit to and bottom part they didn't fit where they belong (see the photo above), so there was a gap of 1cm between them. The main structure of the robot was done by hand without very precise engineering, so gaps between printed parts and servos were uneven. So even if I fixed design problem with the screws there was no I way to fix all gaps. I had to fallback to plan B: use of polystyrene and macroflex To make matters more fun I had to fit wires for 19 servos and plus a bunch of other wires


More shaping, macroflex, shaping, making surface stronger using PVA glue, polishing, glue, polishing, putty, polishing, putty, polishing:


Painting and result:

 

[Mikey_W_1980]

WOW!!

Loving this build!

 

[cargoman5126]

That's unreal...incredible work to put that together..looks amazing....