Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Holy sheets!

A few other things needed to be done before I could get Artoo up and running. I needed to decide how to run wires through the legs, and I needed to fix the center ankle locks.

After even more debate (sometime I swear I spend hours just looking at something before breaking down and doing it), I decided to drill holes in the underside of the ankles. Most builders do this, there's only a few that have wires routed differently and hidden all together. I figure they are so low to the ground, someone would have to get on all fours to see the wires come out the ankles. This was pretty easy, just measure and mark the spot on the ankles, and use a drill press to get a nice smooth hole. Later I took a small file and sandpaper to de-bur any slag. I also put a teeny tiny angle on the inside wall of the holes. That way there is less of a sharp edge to wear down the protective wrap of the wires and it should help prevent any shorting down the road.



Always a little stressing drilling or cutting into something very expensive. I'll probably drill a hole into the battery boxes when I get further along. A lot of builders drill the second hole into the top of the foot right below the ankle. Neither is better than the other, its all personal preference. I figure the battery boxes cost a lot less to replace if I screw it up.



Back when I installed the center ankle locks I noticed there was a bit of a gap left below the locks themselves. This caused a tiny bit of rocking in the center ankle when changing direction. So I knew I had to fix it. I had some aluminum sheeting laying around that I plan on using for the kick plates and behind the utility arms. Test fitting the sheeting looked like it would be just the right thickness. I took the locks off, laid them on the sheeting, drew a line where I needed to cut and broke out some cutting shears. I bent them back out as straight as I could and then used some fast setting epoxy to adhere them to the locks. A little sandpaper and elbow grease evened out the transition between them. I slapped them back on the center ankle and viola, a stable ankle that no longer rocks.


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