Thread: Blinking Eyes

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A friend mentioned that he wanted blinking eyes for some bushes this year, but the trick was that he wanted them to really blink.

After a bit of talking and thinking, I had an idea. Find some plastic spheres that separate into halves, mount a servo in one side, attach an arm to the other and mount a servo horn to it. A bit of 3D sketching led to this...



I managed to find "fillable ornaments" at a craft store in 80 mm and 100 mm sizes. Perfect for a servo I had left over from last year's house eyes project.

A bit more sketching

Pre-assembly

Final assembly

A bit of paint

It looked and worked well enough, so I moved on to the second eye. It seemed silly for another servo, so I made an idler eye that would be driven by the first. I glued push pins to the "eyeball" and deformed the "lid" to slip over the pin tips. CAD Sketch

The hangers for the ornaments were a natural attachment point for the linkage.

A bit more paint

Once I remember how to get to my outside server, I'll post the video link.

brilliant, probably the best looking eyes I have ever seen

Can you post some video?

Those look really good. Would like to see a video of them in action also.

much more advance than the light blinking eyes! They look really good! VIDEO!!!

Very nice design. Ingenious!

Thanks all. Here's the video...

video

Hey, they look really good.

Great idea!

In order to better light the eyes, I've modified the design a bit. I moved the servo out of the one eye and put it between the two. I also switched to RC push rods and rod ends for the linkage.