Well, I feel that feeling coming up again, and AM now going to take the servo-ing several steps further. Here is my initial (often overly optimistic) Mission Statement:
I will build a hammerhead, with a spinning turret remotely controlled. In addition, The chin turret will move left and right (90-120 degree travel), and the GUN DRONE CRADLES will track along with it! Lastly, the third radio channel will act as a 'throttle', and pivot the engine pods up and down. Lighting-wise: the foreward slits in the wings will be lit (white led/incandescent headlights), the cockpit window will be translucent and faintly backlit, the engine pods will have a red glow from the exhausts, and, if possible, the railgun will have blue light strips down the barell length on both sides, illuminating the middle open channel.
WOW. Im not too sure about all that, but anyways, thats the obsession that simply MUST BE MADE MANIFEST.
And heres what ive got so far:
This is the electronics package from the old Razorback. The blue thing is the servo, modified to spin continuously left or right on command (to those familiar with RC servoes, youll know this isnt normal. I had to modify it internally), the white-ish thing is the radio reciever, and the big yellow thing is the battery pack. All in all you can see its pretty small package, easily able to fit fully inside the vehicles, as wires running out of it kind of takes away the suprise/kewlness factor of it all.
This is a rough test fit, showing the arrangement of the equipment in such a way to directly drive the turret- the same way it was used in the Razorback. I can see that there is plenty of room, so this stuff will remain pretty much unchanged (sorry razorback... you can keep the lighting/radar spinner though). That blue servo is pretty small, and I though it was as small as they get...
until I found this:Note the not so subtle pricetag in the background... yeah.. once you get the radio, the rest of the stuff has gotten super cheap over the years.
Here is a size comparison shot, to give you an idea just how tiny it is, and how suitable it will be for this vehicle design.
And now, for the mechanics of how its all supposedly going to work:
I plan on removing the nosegear box, and sinking the box of the servo into the hole, with the cut off landing pad covering the bottom, and hiding it all. The servo will have it arms, and the linkage wires (an example of one top right) will go from that spinning drive arm to the nose (on the left/right side arms), while the drone cradles will attempt to be driven left and right by a pushrod going from the foreward facing drive arm out through each wing, hooked onto the drone disks... somehow (still an initial plan)After some carefull looking and positioning, it looks as though I could drill a tube within the wings, at the rear of the wing, to make the wire reach the drone disks... the problem is the pivoting connection of that rod so that, if it is pushed in and out, the disk will pan left and right. I dunno at the moment: but possibly I could notch the edge of the disk, where it butts against the cradle, allowing the wire to get to the inside of the disk, to attach to the drone. Its complicated, as you can imagine, the angles of all this stuff will change as it moves. And I have to ensure it doesnt just push the drones off of the wing. Plus, I want it to be all unseen.
Well, these are the challenges. There is room. I have the parts. Its just the details of the mechanics of it all... Any suggestions are definitely welcome!!
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