Sandcrawler project

Yep, build's back on. Before I tackle new construction, I need to solve the problem of my pump buzzing. it's started doing that the last couple months, and I only recently thought to dismantle a not-really-working extra pump that I have.
The one I'm using is a Laing DDC-3. The extra one is a 3.25, but it doesn't really work. I can get the central spinner to spin, but as soon as I cut power and then power it back up, it won't spin without help. Usually a "jump-start" spin from my fingers gets it going, but obviously I can't use it since the top needs to be off for the finger-jump-start to work. (perfect sig-quote line LOL).

However, since that central spinner is the only moving part in the whole thing, it must be that it's wobbling slightly, which tells me that maybe my mounting method is at fault. I'm going to try remounting it in a different spot where I can hopefully get it level. But of course this'll involve draining the system, replacing a couple hoses with longer sections, and refilling it.

The pump, sans top:

With the central spinner removed, and the inner workings removed from the outer shell:

So I learned something today. Don't use an air compressor to blow your coolant out of your system without hanging onto the hose through which the coolant exits the system and enters whatever receptacle you've chosen. Otherwise this might result:

Yep. Damn stuff sprayed everywhere, it was like something out of a cartoon. got all over the carpet, bedsheets, my clothes, chair, chair mat, scanner, router, computer, etc etc. Luckily it didn't seem to stain too much, came right out of the carpet after spraying with water. Live and learn, eh? :facepalm:

I got the pump switched out, and the new placement seems to be working. It's making hardly any noise now, which is a big relief. What specifically did I do? I didn't just move it. I dismantled it, replaced the outer shell with my extra one that didn't have a broken-off screw mount, switched the central spinner with the extra one (I doubt it makes any difference though), and mounted it down below where it used to be. There's a piece of thin foam rubber between the bottom of the pump and the base, for vibration absorbtion.

New placement - on the base instead of up high. The only downside is it won't be visible from the upper cutaway opening on that side, but I'd rather that than letting it continue buzzing the way it was.

So there you have it. Pump taken care of. I hope. The annoying part is only time will tell, but given that it was buzzing like crazy before and now it's barely whispering, I'd say it worked. :D

To finish off the coolant disaster...I got it all cleaned up this morning. Luckily with warm water and a sponge (and a lot of gentle scrubbing) the dye came right off the wall.

As you can see, I had to unhook the computer, scanner, printer, cable modem, routers, etc, and move that whole table out of there to get to the wall. I took the opportunity to do a little cable management in the back area of the computer - the fan power cables were a bit of a mess and got in the way of the various monitor, power, speaker cords.

Before:

After (all it took was one ziptie):

Since these little UV lights kept falling out due to my superglue not holding them in place, I hit them with hot glue. Seems to have worked:

So here's the end result, with 2 DVI cables, power cable, keyboard/mouse cable, microphone, speakers, webcam and scanner USB cables all plugged in. I had to hold the camera behind the computer pointed back toward me, as I can't get into that corner between the computer table and my desk:

Oh and that pump. It's still buzzing slightly. ARG!!!!!!! I have one more theory though. It wasn't buzzing at all, until I topped off the system with more coolant. I'm wondering if the coolant's expanding as it heats up, and extra air bubbles act as a bit of a cushion. Without that cushion, maybe the coolant pressure is getting higher than the pump can smoothly handle? I dunno...it's easy enough to test, just need to pull a bit out with an eye dropper and see if that quiets things down...

For today, I have a little progress and....some concept art! woo hoo! well, ok it's mostly old, but some of it I just created.

I don't remember why I drew this. But I did, back in 2007 sometime. I think it may have been to see the concept of the central chamber for the fans.

This was the drawing I did for the boarding ramps. Below the drawing is a photo of the finished part.

Next up, I'm going to build a crane inside the front main loading door. This is my concept art for it; after drawing these designs, I found some model parts that'll work equally well and will be similar, but not the same as these designs.

Here's the drawing I made when I re-made the tank treads.

And lastly, a drawing I just did yesterday of the lower side openings on the crawler. The intent was to get the basic concept of what would go inside. Following the drawing are photos showing what I've been working on the last few days.

Yikes! These are the floor coverings for the lower openings on each side. Guess there’s a bit more room on one side than the other…I *think* it’s because I had to leave room for add-in cards on one side, which left less room for the interior stuff in the model. Luckily it’s not possible to see both sides at the same time. Not really, anyway.

What have we here? Hmm…well, this’ll be a box. Note in my drawing above that I wanted a recessed area low on the wall backing up to the outside recessed area. This piece of Bristol vellum will be that low recessed spot.

Ok. I know the popsicle sticks in all their multicolorific glory look a little silly. It’ll be better once it’s painted. Honest.

Finally, I created the stuff in the lowest opening, on the right side only (all other openings are duplicated on the left side of the crawler). The pieces that make up the door frame are mount halves from my Danger Den reservoirs. I couldn’t use their mounts, and I broke a couple of the halves in trying, so I had these leftover pieces just sitting around. Luckily they make a great door! The yellow tube is from an ultra-cheap mini basketball hoop toy, it connected the two plastic tubes together that held up the backboard. Everything else you see in there is electronic junk. There’ll be a LOT more of that going in elsewhere in this build :D Oh yes, and that IS another R2D2 you see. Painted properly, so I saved him for a little more visible spot than the one in the cockpit. Like that one, this is left over from an old Ertl X-wing model I no longer have.

Oh yeah. The mess on my table. And this is just with the electronic junk sorted out; the extra model pieces are still in a bag…

If anyone can guess what that larger thing is between my wooden X-Acto knife box and the edge of the table in the second-to-last photo, I’d be curious to know. It’s heavy, seems like it should be an electric motor (coiled wire, piece of metal inside to act as an electro-magnet) but there’s no shaft or anything coming out of it. Not sure yet if I’ll use it, I might.

That's it for now, more after Labor Day!

The lolipop guild, we represent. Yes we do. ..hmmm, on second thought, maybe that should be the popsicle guild. :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by artoodeeto

If anyone can guess what that larger thing is between my wooden X-Acto knife box and the edge of the table in the second-to-last photo, I’d be curious to know. It’s heavy, seems like it should be an electric motor (coiled wire, piece of metal inside to act as an electro-magnet) but there’s no shaft or anything coming out of it. Not sure yet if I’ll use it, I might.

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That's a transformer coil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer

Quote:

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Originally Posted by x88x

The lolipop guild, we represent. Yes we do. ..hmmm, on second thought, maybe that should be the popsicle guild. :P

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LOL :D yeah...I used the popsicle sticks on some of the spots visible on the outside, and they looked equally ridiculous til I painted them. Then it was cool. Someday I'll have a job again and will be able to afford sheet styrene, which is really what I should be using. But til then, I'll continue being creative with what I've got.

if there's a total plastics near you get styrene there. I got a 4'x6' sheet for $25 :D

*dig dig dig....that's me searching through the old pages trying to find where this log had gotten buried :) I really should update it more often...anyways. I've made a bit more progress - there's now, inside the main loading bay on the first level, sliding doors that can cover up the big bright blue LED 120mm fan, and a retracting conveyor belt between the doors.

I need to add (a lot) more detail in there, but I realized that I need to approach the interior in stages. That means I need to gradually build up the interior, keeping the detail level uniform, so I don't over-detail one area and run out of stuff to detail another area. The upper section is next on the list, if I get my act together and actually work on it. :whistler:

*note on the links on the conveyor. Technically there's 1 "extra" link on there, which is why it looks so saggy in that side view. It was tighter, but in the course of putting everything together I accidentally broke the links apart. It was really tough stretching it to fit before I installed it in the crawler, so it was near impossible reconnecting the links after it was in there. So for the moment I've added the extra link, and if I know myself, at some point it'll bother me enough that I'll unscrew the whole conveyor, pull it out, fix it, and put it back in. One of these days...

Good to see progress on this again. :up:

It's good to see this getting worked on again.