Thread: My Animatronic/Pneumatic prop

Tweet

I am 20 years old and this is the first time that I have worked with pneumatics, ever. its nothing great rather hodge podged together. This animatronic human is still under construction and is only about 1/9 the way done. The fingers on this animatronic/pneumatic prop move. The fingers point or grab, 2 cylinders work this movement, they pull on small cables whick raise and lower the fingers. the third cylinder on the hand part when pulled rotates the hand. The hand rotates back by a pring when no air is applied, it has a large berring to make the rotation movement slicker. the elbow bends with the 4th cylinder on the arm. The 4th cylinder swings the arm outward and the 5th cylinder on the linkage swings the hand up, this one that swings the hand up has two berrings to help with an easier movement. The rest of this character is being worked on and I will keep it updated on this forum. This character will have 24 pneumatic cylinder movements and 11 servo motor movements, 29 servo movements if i have enough time before Halloween to complete. I will be sculpting the head myself hand hands, they will be silicone. This is my first time working with pneumatics, please don't be to harsh with the reply's.

Here are some more photos of the project I am working on.

LMAO!! The last one pretty much sums it all up! Looks like you got a side buisness in the making! I'd love to get some stuff made for pop up's, TCT, stuff like that...they are always so expensive.

Looks like a DC cemetary prop.

Here is a good formula you may need when designing props

Weight of the resistance (Force R) x the length of the “EFFECTIVE” resistance arm =
Weight of the effort (Force E) x the length of the “EFFECTIVE” effort arm.


so in my case the whole arm weighs 15 lbs and arm is about 34 inches long
I am trying to find the force for the cylinder so that will be x, and the length of the lever that this cylinder pulls is 3 inches so....

15 x 36 = X x 3
510 = 3X
----- ----
3 ---- 3

170 = x or x = 170 so I need at least 170lbs of force to pull the whole arm straight up in the air. The arm will also pick up momentum when the fulcrum point changes as it goes up so... the arm will move slow when starting and speed up real fast once it reaches a certain point on the lever. I will need to use a flow control valve to make the arm move at a constant speed... I goofed up on this earlier and used a 60psi cylinder and the arm did not go up it wasted a good 2 hours trying to figure this out and then test it. It works now.

Had time to attach the arms permanently today here is how they look on the pneumatic prop, photos of the legs being started. Also photo of a $250,000.00 motion base being worked on at the shop.

This is my first time working with pneumatics, please don't be to harsh with the reply's. then I'd hate to see your second!I'm impressed! So you go to M.I.T?

Looks cool so far but looks like it is going to be huge and very heavy, i wouldnt have room to store something so big.

I wish I could go to M.I.T but I am not smart enough to. I go to community college. As for the weight, ya its really heavy, but it is the same size as a 6' 2" person. It will be made to come apart in three pieces for easy moving. The torso with head will be one section. The lower torso with legs and plate will be another section. The 9 foot pneumatic wings with animatronic eyes on it will be a third section.

-Frank Balzer

Wow! Awesome! It is nice to see people bringing this level of ambition and skill to the table!