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T08A2 / R3000 spider lightweight tank (from GITS)


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I started working on T08A2 / R3000 spider tank from Ghost In The Shell movie a year ago. For those who haven't seen the movie - I would highly recommend, it's one of the best sci-fi anime movies.



GITS-Screenshots.jpg



Scale 1:20 (roughly :))



One of the biggest problems that I had from the start was non existence of blue prints, or actually anything that would be close to that. That's why scale is approximate :) So for "blueprints" I ended up with a few things:


So yeah, none of these were precise. Actually, even frames from the movie sometimes contradict itself. To make matters worse I wanted to make a model which could move, so following sizes and strength of mechanical components had to be taken into consideration as well...



Initial idea was to make the shell from a styrofoam, but during last year I bought a 3D printer, which came very handy when making these complex shapes.


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This is almost complete frame (except "arms"/weapons) and close to complete electronics:





Motion is controlled by RaspberryPi. Programming in C++, from scratch. It is controlled with PS3 joystick, but there are plan to have some autonomous functionality.


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Wow, this is a way off the beaten track! Should be an interesting project; I haven't seen the GITS movie but there is some amusing hardware in the franchise -Kotobukiya's Jigabachi is on my personal shopping list.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A little bit from work progress:

Model in 3dsMax:

Gun01-3dsMax.jpg

Model in 3D printing program:

Gun02-Slicing.jpg

Model in 3D printing program (after slicing):

Gun03-Slicing.jpg

Printed parts:

Gun04-3DPrinting.jpg

Here should be some screenshots of work with sanding paper and acetone, because that's a big part of 3D printing, but about that some other time :)

Assembly of electronics (2x servos, 1x laser):

Gun05-Electronics.jpg

Hiding of cables inside the ammunition belt:

Gun06-Belt.jpg
Gun07-Belt.jpg
Gun08-Belt.jpg

Painting of base color and assembly:

Gun10-Assembled.jpg

Edited by PauliusLiekis
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Wiring complete!


  • 2x Raspberry Pi mirco computers (1st for motion control, 2nd for face tracking)
  • 28x Servos (18 for legs, 4 for body, 6 for weapons)
  • 1x Camera (for face tracking)
  • 3x Servo drivers
  • 2x Lasers (how can you have a robot wittout lazors??!!! :))
  • 1x Distance sensor
  • 1x PS3 controller

...and some armor:


GITS-Electronics3.jpg


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A little bit more of progress on the legs:

GITS00-3dsMax.jpg
GITS00-3dsMax2.jpg

3D printing:
GITS01-LegS1-3DPrinted.jpg GITS01-LegS2-3DPrinted.jpg GITS02-LegS3-3DPrinted.jpg GITS01-LegS3-3DPrinted-Toes.jpg


Polishing (i.e. reducing visibility of 3D printing slices by sand paper and acetone; acetone also gives strength):
GITS02-LegS2-Polished.jpg GITS03-LegS3-Polished.jpg


Assembling:
GITS02-LegS1-Assembled.jpg GITS03-LegS2-Assembled.jpg GITS04-LegS2-Assembled2.jpg GITS04-LegS3-AssembledSuspension.jpg GITS05-LegS3-Assembled.jpg


Puttying (is that a word? :)) (hiding marks of 3D printing even further):
GITS03-LegS1-Putty.jpg GITS06-LegS3-Putty.jpg


Painting:
GITS04-LegS1-Painted.jpg GITS05-LegS2-Painted1.jpg GITS05-LegS2-Painted2.jpg GITS05-LegS2-Painted3.jpg GITS05-LegS2-Painted4.jpg GITS07-LegS3-Painted.jpg GITS08-LegS3-PaintedToes.jpg GITS09-LegS3-Final.jpg


Result:
GITS10-Leg.jpg

"Suspension" of toes:
GITS10-LegS3-Suspension.jpg

I hope to finish main body and the I'll be able to attach the legs. I hope that everying will work once cables are connected (fingers crossed :)) Otherwise I'll have to disassmeble (read: break) and redo some parts :)) The original plan was to have ability to disassemblable, but that was too complicated, so I skipped that part :)

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One of the most complicated parts: it's time to cover main-body to which all legs are attached:
GITS00-Body-Target01.jpg

The optimistic plan was to print it from a couple of parts:
GITS00-Body-Target02.jpg GITS00-Body-Target03.jpg

Problem #1: printer shifts all layers by ~1cm sometime during printing. It still did in a different place when printing flipped part, although the problem was smaller, so I just fixed it by slicing printed part into two and gluing it together in correct place:.
GITS01-Body-3DPrintingProblems01.jpg GITS01-Body-3DPrintingProblems02.jpg GITS01-Body-3DPrintingProblems03.jpg

I subdivided the remaining parts into smaller parts before printing in order to avoid same problems during print:
GITS02-Body-3DPrinting.jpg

Problem #2: I could not assemble robot using these parts - there was no way to fit sphere in the middle through other parts once everything is assembled. I had to cut it into smaller pieces and attach these parts separately.
GITS03-Body-AssemblyProblems.jpg

Problem #3: first design mistakes: my virtual project had no screws, so when I tried to fit to and bottom part they didn't fit where they belong (see the photo above), so there was a gap of 1cm between them. The main structure of the robot was done by hand without very precise engineering, so gaps between printed parts and servos were uneven. So even if I fixed design problem with the screws there was no I way to fix all gaps. I had to fallback to plan B: use of polystyrene and macroflex smiley.gif To make matters more fun I had to fit wires for 19 servos and plus a bunch of other wires smiley.gif
GITS04-Body-Assembly01.jpg GITS04-Body-Assembly02.jpg GITS04-Body-Assembly03.jpg GITS04-Body-Assembly04.jpg GITS06-Body-Shaping01.jpg GITS06-Body-Shaping02.jpg GITS06-Body-Shaping03.jpg GITS06-Body-Shaping04.jpg

More shaping, macroflex, shaping, making surface stronger using PVA glue, polishing, glue, polishing, putty, polishing, putty, polishing:
GITS06-Body-Shaping05.jpg GITS06-Body-Shaping06.jpg GITS06-Body-Shaping07.jpg

Painting and result:
GITS08-Body-Result01.jpg GITS08-Body-Result02.jpg

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Some photos from older printing:

"Find 10 differences!" or "My printer misunderstood what I actually want to print (correct piece is on the left side)":
GITS00-Tail-PrintingIssues.jpg

"Tail":
GITS01-Tail-3dsMax.jpg

The part is to big to make it as a single print - the max print dimensions 20x20x20cm. It was chopped into 6 individual pieces. The printer was misbehaving again a bit, so 2 out of 6 parts had to be corrected after printing:
GITS01-Tail-Printing1.jpg GITS01-Tail-Printing2.jpg GITS01-Tail-Printing3.jpg

Assembled:
GITS02-Tail-Assembly1.jpg GITS02-Tail-Assembly2.jpg

I covered the bottom piece with too much acetone, which resulted in bends...smiley.gif I had to cut it, screw to the frame, glue together and use a lot of putty afterwards smiley.gif There is still small gap between the top and bottom, so I added a screw to tighten them together after closing. The top and bottom are not glued together, since main electronics sits there and I need to service it occasionally or attach screen and keyboard when coding for it.
GITS03-Tail-Putty1.jpg GITS03-Tail-Putty2.jpg

Result:
GITS04-Tail-Result1.jpg
GITS04-Tail-Result2.jpg

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Thank you, Matt. 3D printing is a piece of cake:) it's actually a no-brainer. Post-processing 3D prints is a bit harder, but mastering sanding paper and putty is not a big deal too. I messed up a few "tail" parts by getting wrong proportions for putty during this build. Waited for a week for it to dry out - it never did :) I had to scrape it off using knife, file and sanding paper. Ruined a few good files in the process.

3D modelling is a bit harder and I suck at it. I just use a couple of based operations and just build bit by bit. My brother (who is professional modeller) can do everything probably like 5x faster :)

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I found out that the old RaspberryPi (model B) is getting in a way of cables after assembling all printed parts, so I replaced it by newer model A+. Everything fits much better now:

GITS-RPiReplacement.jpg


This is how it looked before the painting of details:

GITS-Assembled.jpg

Edited by PauliusLiekis
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  • 1 month later...
I finally found time to fix electronics.


Main change: I switched to power source with higher voltage (from 5V to 7.5V) - this gives more strength to the legs. One of the main problems was that it was having hard time standing on the legs after putting so much plastic on it. The robot weights ~5kg now. New and shiny power source:

GITS-PowerUpgrade1.jpg

Of course RaspberryPi still needs 5V, so I had to put voltage stabiliser. That leads to some energy loses, but who cares when you're not planning to use batteries and you have 26A :))


I also had to switch to shorter and thicker power cables for servos. And better plugs for those cables too. I'm glad I didn't have to pull any new cables through internals of the robot - it would be very hard to do at this point :) Although I still had to put a relay in the back and some thick cables. It doesn't look nice (when it's open), but it works! :)

GITS-PowerUpgrade2.jpg


I found out that servos in arms take 6V max, so I had to put another voltage stabiliser :) Any change is never as easy as it seems at first sight:)

GITS-PowerUpgrade3.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

just read the article, you are doing very well PauliusLiekis on this model. I do like the Mecha in GitS, would like to build the V-22 looking thing one day. Oh yeah and a Tachikoma ;)

Looking forward to seeing more on this project. :)

Kind Regards,

Dazz

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just read the article, you are doing very well PauliusLiekis on this model. I do like the Mecha in GitS, would like to build the V-22 looking thing one day. Oh yeah and a Tachikoma ;)

Oh, tiltrotor is a nice one too :)

Tachikoma is a hard one (i.e. to robotise it), because it uses ball joints for legs and has just 4 of them. And if you make any modifications true fans will notice it, because everyone is so familiar with it :) Anyway I would love to build a static model of it one day.

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  • 1 month later...

Well....i go away for a year and come back to seeing the most awesome thing ever!

Why can i not buy this and why has no company offered a resin casting.

Amazing work sir, the electronics and 3d modelling alone would leave me a gibbering wreck.e

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