Sandcrawler project

[artoodeeto]

Sounds like it will be finished enough to show for next year's Rods & Mods also.

I'm kidding, I know these things take a long time and the last thing most of us want to do is rush through them. No reason to hurry something that's coming along as nicely as this.

Indeed Now I'm thinking about sticking some DC motors in there to run conveyor belts and to spin those two big gray pipes around (visible through the upper side flaps). Kinda giving up on the idea of servos, at least for the opening flaps: cheapest servo I've found is $15, and I'd need 12. I may still do one on the front loading door, we'll see.

[billygoat333]

maybe find some used cd drives for cheap? those have servos in them

[Loki]

I think old CD drives have stepper motors, not servos..

[artoodeeto]

the outer paint job is very nearly done now. I'm learning a huge amount from this paint job, I've never really been able to weather anything particularly well, and I'm learning things like painting a dark color under a lighter one to subtly darken the light color, and I'm learning that painting in a lot of layers of various colors and shades can create a much more interesting paint job. It'll be a couple days before I have time to finish it, but here's what I accomplished this weekend:

Dismantled the base so I could paint the treads, and decided to add a couple thick wood dowel pieces (same dowel I used to make the triangular things on the loading door) to the middle of the underside for added support. The middle has been sagging a bit due to the weight of the computer, and luckily where these dowels are located, you can't really see them when the model is upright. In one of the photos, the top of one tank tread set is a bit glossier than the others because I ran out of my gunmetal/flat black mix and had to mix in a large amount of semi-gloss black. It's ok though, that part of the tread really isn't visible, and I later oversprayed a light coat of gray anyway.

this is the upper side of the base, sans most of the computer. The wires you see are predominantly under the motherboard, but I decided to spray them all black anyway to match the rest of the inside. I also cut a strip out where the cords go in, so I no longer have to wrestle the plugs through that half-PVC pipe in the back. I can just lay the cords through the open strip, and since I angled the cut, they shouldn't really pop out on their own. This also means I can reattach a SCSI scanner I have, as before the plug was too big to fit through the pipe.

For the upper section, I masked off several random panels (based loosely on the film model) and painted them black. However, they came out way darker than I meant them to, so I oversprayed a thin coat of the dark brown to fade the panels back a bit. Worked pretty well.

I masked off the exterior bays so I could paint them gray (Model Master Dark Gull Gray with a little Flat White mixed in, then thinned for the airbrush), just like on the film model (although it's not very apparent when watching the movie). I haven't done any detail painting in the bays yet, but I will, then I'll dirty them up.

the paint job as it is now. I used the same gray from the bays to do the exterior streaks. they're a little too contrasting with the brown for my taste, so I may do a very light brown overcoat to fade them. then again, I'm planning on using chalk powder to simulate paint fading, and that might be enough. the rust marks are mostly done, I started with Model Master Go Mango (semi-gloss unfortunately, hence the slight sheen) and mixed in some Model Master Rust to darken it. I'm going to darken the remaining paint even more and add some darker areas to the rust spots, and I'll probably go back to the original Mango color to add a few highlights here and there. Then I need to do the silver paint chips, detail painting/weathering in the bays, then I can do the chalk for paint fading. Then the outside will be done. I hope.

I'm also open to suggestions on this paint job if anyone has any input or ideas for improvements.

[artoodeeto]

Space prohibiting, the psu naked in the assembly bay could provide a nice backdrop to the droids scattered about. It would still look great even behind a thin plastic sheet.

that's a great idea re: psu location, I'll have to see if I can incorporate that somehow. The major limiting factor with ideas like that is the top of the model needs to be completely removeable, and in order to have a minimum number of plugs to unhook before removing the top (currently 2 plugs: fans and lights), all the computer equipement has to be on the base. If I just stuck the PSU (sans outer case) into the main loading bay, I wouldn't be able to physically reach in and hook up the plugs. hmm...I'll have to think on this one...you're givin' me some good ideas! +rep for that!
One thought that would require slight internal shuffling around, but also the least shuffling - if you look at the last photo in my post above, there's that large rearmost opening panel. I could detach the "floor" from the room inside that panel, move the hard drive over to the other side of the base (it's currently under that floor), and then mount the uncased PSU on a raised platform that would replace the rooms floor. That would give me the base of the rear engine room and it would be functional. Then I could add maybe a screen-mesh floor above it to look like grating, and build the rest of the room interior on that.

[billygoat333]

I think old CD drives have stepper motors, not servos..

you are right. haha

[artoodeeto]

Got the PSU mostly dismantled (I posted this in the PSU section of the forum too)...but...how do I get the plug and main switch detached from the metal case? Am I right in thinking that I need to desolder them from their wires and pull them out from the outside, or is there some trick I'm missing that would allow me to detach the plastic collars from the outsides of each and pull the remaining parts through to the inside of the PSU?

and double ARG! It seems that some of the wires really are hardwired, which means without snipping cables, I can't remove the extra 8-pin PCI-E cord (my GTX 285 uses two modular 6-pin cords). although I suppose I could try desoldering them...maybe I'll do that. I don't want to permanently damage it, I doubt I'll ever need that cord, but I always think what if....

It's only still in the case because of the plug and main switch; all the screws holding it in are removed...

[artoodeeto]

My PSU warranty is SO void now LOL...but actually it was probably expired anyway.
I got it dismantled. I ended up snipping a short length of wire (my solder gun wouldn't melt whatever solder they used) that attached the power switch to the main power plug so I could pull the switch and plug out of the case, but the other wires were just clipped onto the PCB. It took some work to get them off, but I prevailed.
Now I gotta solder longer wires to the switch and power plug so I can locate them wherever I need to, and I need to do some internal redesign in my case to accomodate the changes.... fun!

I *might* be getting a water cooling setup, so my plan of attack as far as figuring out where to put everything is this:
The PSU formerly resided at the rear left corner of the base. It will now move to the rear right corner to be under the floor of the engine room, and will be visible via a screenmesh covered hole in the floor. My hard drive (SSD, so it's only 2.5") is currently where the PSU will go, and I will move it maybe under the motherboard, or up toward the front of the base somewhere. That leaves the left rear corner totally empty, and since a 140mm PSU used to sit there, it should have enough room for a pump and reservoir (hopefully at least the pump, I know a reservoir isn't critical for a WC loop). I'll mount the radiator above the motherboard, so it's sticking up into the fan chamber and will replace the fans in there now. But, it'll be attached to the base so I can still lift off the top. Haven't figured out yet how to make an armature (sp?) to hold the rad up there, a lot will depend on its size, screw hole locations, etc.
It's silly...for a case this large, there's not much interior space, mostly cuz I decided to build an interior of the model. But I'm hoping this will be the final redesign. It better be LOL...
Also, I was thinking about getting a couple of mini (3" diam. or so) plasma balls that hook up via USB, and incorporating them into the upper engine room machinery, one on each side of the model. I think it'll look totally awesome, but it may also look too high-tech for this vehicle, which is supposed to be old and beat up. Anyone have any thoughts on this? It could be the Jawas found a wrecked spaceship and snagged its power generator...

[SXRguyinMA]

you need to de-solder the wires from the switch, I did it when I modded the PSU in rockin case. also, I just snipped the un-needed wires about 4" up and heatshrinked the ends. That way they wont short out and you can strip and re-solder the wires together if you ever need to

take a picture of the wires on the switch before you remove them so you'll know how they go back together

[artoodeeto]

I think what I'll do on the unneeded PCI-E cable is snip the various wires at slightly different lengths, that way they'll only (easily) fit back together one way. and yeah, I'll definitely at least tape off the ends with electrical tape, and zip-tie them so they don't go anywhere.
As for the switch...yep, got a picture, thanks luckily there's only two wires to worry about, and it wasn't too hard to remember. I have a dual-temp soldering gun from radio shack (not the best on the face of the earth, but it works), I think its high temp is about 1100 degrees, and not even that was enough to melt the solder on the switch. I left it on the soldered wire for at least 10-15 seconds, although I suppose I could try longer.
I'd prefer just to put in entirely new wire on the switch, but I'll probably have to solder in new wire onto the existing. Should work fine, I'm not anticipating any problems. And I figure if it doesn't I can run over to Fry's and get a new switch.