Building a robot YOU can drive around MY shop Pt.3

I tap holes for the motor mounts and put together the planetary gears after which I can show the robot moving under it’s own power fir the first time. This thing is looking AWESOME!

This was streamed on Twitch on Dec 13, 2020.

Special thanks to Greg Needel of REV Robotics and @Esden for the robotics care packages!

00:00:00 Stream starts
Stream starts with mic audio muted
Mute is solved quickly.
It’s very snowy in Picuris, they had a foot of snow.
Scotty tells chat he’ll be out flying the drone as it was requested because he’d let on he’d been out filming part of the day already.
Small anecdote about Scotty getting stuck in the snow with his truck and having to put snowchains on.
Slight technical difficulties getting to stream Drone camera feed to OBS
MEanwhile chat and Scotty troll new viewer @3even on oxygen sensors. The troll involves a canary and a weight sensor.

00:06:16 Picuris in Winter
Scotty has the drone connected, he switches to Dogcam to show the launch of the Mavic.
We have liftoff.
Scotty moves inside to manage stream.
Scene switches to Drone feed.
Scotty shows us a snow blanketed Picuris during sunset. (Watch the vod! It’s gorgeous!)
Whether it’s the weather or location of drone in relation to Scotty, reception is bad so flying around a bunch isn’t entirely possible.
Scotty explains a littlemore of the pueblo while showing us rolling vistas
Initiates auto land on the drone.
Scotty lands the drone on roof of his truck and heads back inside to build a robot!

00:17:26 Robot status and next steps
Scotty explains we’re up to tapping holes in the plate after holes were machined in the previous stream.
He begins by setting up the workspace he had setup previously at the back of the workshop on the metal table.
Scotty explains he has a cheap tapset from Harbor Freight. Not special but it’s ok, he’s happy with it.

00:23:14 Manual Tapping
Let’s start tapping!
Tapping is all about patience. (Remember this for later)
Manually tapping the hole, Scotty explains his SAE drill bitset is slightly larger than required so the bolts he puts in will be a little loose.
A set of metric drills is added to Alexa’s shoppinglist as Scotty makes a quick and dirty jig to aid him in getting a good tap.
Scotty methodically taps each motormount hole with his jig and tapper.
Answers chat questions about Stream PC.
Tapping is meditative and peaceful, according to Scotty.
More interaction with chat, answer questions.
Camera is repositioned to offer chat a good view.
Tapmatic Aquacut is from McMaster. Scotty warns that he probably paid too much there but he needed it.
Discussion about metal kitchenware and the possible health implications or not. Conflicting evidence available.
Scotty recommends Adam Savage’s tested.com video on tapping.
We’re half way done!
RIP ThinkGeek 🙁
More taptips, Scotty is not looking forward to completeing the taps in his steel workbench.

00:49:20 Drill Tapping
Scotty wants to try tapping with a drill. What happened to patience???
Explains the drill method didn’t work on the table.
Drill tapping is faster but also more aggressive.
“The only problem is if I break this one that’s the only tap I have” Scotty says as he has a scary moment and almost breaks it.
SUCCESS! No broken taps.
After RoboGreg induced bit and emote celebrations, Scotty grabs the box Greg sent from REV Robotics and sifts through looking for parts.

00:54:59 Attaching the motormounts
Scotty starts attaching motormounts to the plate.
Adam Savage collab wish is discussed – Scotty would love to do one but not remote.
Loctite leak alert!
Interaction with chat about Tested.com, Photogrammetry, Tools and kits
Scotty continues fixing the motormounts to the bottomplate.
Scotty shows the motor and set of planetary gear gearboxes up close.
Scotty isn’t sure what gear ratio he wants.
Sourcing woes and vendor troubles. covid talk and visa re-application struggles.
There’s not really a lack of parts for innovation, there’s a lack of iPhone parts cause they come from china.

01:11:26 Are the iPhone parts in China real or fake?
“Are the iPhone parts in China real iPhone parts or fake?” –> This discussion is SUPER interesting. HIGHLY recommended to watch the vod!
Scotty says it’s far more complex than the wording used in the question.
What does the word real and what does the word fake mean?
Scotty explains it’s a spectrum.
Real would be; Is manufactured in the same factory that makes the parts for apple and is sold by apple and is branded Apple.
IF that is the definition, then there are no real parts.
This morphs into a talk about the markets in china, also, highly interesting.
If you ask the right questions you get honest answers. It’s more about building relationships there.
It boils down to wording semantics.
Briefly touching on “3rd shift”
The motormounts have been done for a little while now.
CodingGarden raids the stream with 51!
While Scotty starts to put together the motors and gearboxes, he interacts with CodingGarden about what he was up to
Morphs into small talk about ATM video and Landyacht video.

01:26:23 Completing gearbox and motor assembly with chitchat
Scotty moves back to his desk for the rest of the motors.
Answers more stream questions about kiting, kiteboarding, electronics and China.
After a brief experience share of Scotty and chat about being shocked (not electrocuted) Scotty completes the second motor.
We need more channel point rewards and we need a name for the points.
Scotty discusses potential names and points sinks with chat.
The topic eerily goes back to mechanical keyboards, Scotty has an obsession!
@srcuso just sold his soul for a StrangeParts keyboard.
The keyboard discussion has gone into OBS switchers and tablet idea’s for Scotty to make.
@tzarc in chat shows off their custom made keyboard
Scotty completes assembling the gearboxes and motors.

01:58:47 Modifying driveshafts
Scotty is back at the metal workbench in the back of the shop where he will mount the motors to the motormounts.
however, the mecanum wheel hubs need an adapter to fit the motors.
Scotty begins by modifying the hex adapter that Greg sent him. HE admits the adapter is probablky the right size, it’s likely the wheel that is too small.
Greg starts to cry as Scotty files the anodization off the adapters.
Scotty moves back to the desk where he can attach the now filed down adapters to the motors.
Discussion about Graphicscards giveaways, discord servers and bots for stock checks while Scotty attaches the first shaft.

02:18:29 ASMR Motor and driveshaft assembly
ASMR Robot Stream begins.
Music selection is changed to match the intimacy of this new setting.
Scotty now also takes the time to change his lighting setup to add to the mood.
Strange Parts: After Dark. ASMR Motor Assembly starts.
We’re distracted by someone in chat who has made Twitch integration setup for WLED and posts a video about it.
Greg answers chat question about the motors with a link.
Motors are complete!
Scotty moves the bottomplate over to the desk and gets his blue mat so he can mount the motors to the plate at the desk.

02:35:10 Mounting motors to the base
We have a new viewing angle for motor mounting process.
After a 2 or 3 week break, Scotty confirms the water is back on.
Lvl1 HypeTrain complete!
Question in chat about pollutants in PCB process and whether pricing is affected by how pollutant factories are or not.
The reality is there’s no real way to know. Scotty has visited a few factories, they’re well run but not overly or under polluting. PCB manufacturing is inherently polluting anyway.
Greg offers more knowlege in that local Shenzhen authorities have cracked down on pollutants recently
Scotty agrees with Greg and goes on that China in general is really starting to get into environmentalism and push toward proper pollution mitigation.
It doesn’t help that alot of media attention on China is overly negative and unhelpfully out of date.
The picture a lot of people have about China is not accurate because of the style of reporting on it.
Scotty rolls into an explanation about making videos in factories and how image and relationships matter.
Scotty finishes mounting the motors. It’s starting to look a bit like a robot.

02:57:28 Mounting wheels to the driveshafts
Scotty starts to figure out how to install wheels.
Shaft fits on hub but there’s no real method of bolting the wheels to the shaft.
After taking some measurements, Scotty finds he has some spare M16 Nuts from the weldingtable that he can use as spacers.
On top of the nuts goes a washer
Plan is to then stack up 1/4″ washers (Greg sugests a nut instead), then bolt into the shaft, this is will fix the wheel by clamping the washer and spacer nut down.
This proves to be a fiddly process
Scotty gets his extra long grabbers. Adam Savage recommends these.
After much fiddling, one wheel is attached!
The rest should go easier and quicker now Scotty has figured it out.
Greg reminds everyone how mecanum wheels work
Apparantly there’s a debate on mecanum wheel direction which revoles around (Editor’s note: wait for it) how the robot spins (haha!) and resistance to being pushed.
After some brief ratchet ASMR, the second wheel is attached.
The third wheel has all 6 hub bolts attached, Scotty expects this to make attaching the wheel “hardmode”.
It actually tuirns out to be pretty easy.
While fixing the 4th wheel, a discussion on washer directionality arises.
Greg can only think of thrustwashers having true directionality. everything else doesn’t matter.
The wheels are done and it is getting Beefy.
Robot is fatshamed. Chonker 9000. Conkyboi and Chunky robot boi are named.

03:35:20 Provisionally wiring the motors
Scotty wants to plug the motors into a battery to test the motors.
He gets power cables plugged in and rotates the REV branding on the flux rings so it shows.
Scotty believes the power distribution block won’t work yet and he doesn’t have a motor controller, so…..
Stickin’ wires in the holes!
At Greg’s direction, Scotty cuts off the wire ends and strips them.
Scotty is tipped on to wago (way-go) lever nuts.
When adding them to Alexa shoppingcart, Amazon voicerecognition trolls Scotty.
More voice recognition hilarity ensues.
“Alexa! No!”

03:49:01 Powering the robot
Time to attach the battery!
It works!
Currently, the way Scotty temporarily wired it, it spins.
Scotty rewires so it will go forwards.
Scotty realizes the robot isn’t “the formfactor” (size) he was going for and it’s faster than he intended.
It needs a software governor.

03:56:35 Winding down
Robotnames are discussed.
Scotty starts to wind down the stream and thingf of next steps.
– Battery mount system with release
– Wire up motorcontrollers
– Hookup to an Adafruit RPi Servo Shield
Scotty will pull bot names from chat after the fact and do a poll.
Scotty ends stream by raiding Ryan56k