Mechanical Buffalo – 4-13-16 Update

Ralphie IV lives!!!!!

*MIC DROP*

***

Ralphie V is currently printing. In real life, the current Colorado Buffalo is Ralphie V. Therefore, this is the final design iteration :).

I have made some minor adjustments to improve the toy’s ability to be assembled.

ralphie V top

As you can see, I’ve added arrows to depict the correct orientation each gear needs to be assembled into order to get the legs to move properly.

ralphie V total iso

 

I added some ridges to the twist piece to make it easier to grip.

ralphie V internals

Instead of using standoff features on the gears, I just made the fillet radius at the base of each column the same. The gears will rest at the top of the radii. I also wanted to get rid of the standoffs because they were causing a lot of post-processing issues. The support material on the inside of the standoffs were previously nearly impossible to remove. This is no longer a problem.

Alright, one more week to go and just about done!!! It has been a lot of design and re-design but I am very proud of the result so far. I had never designed anything with functioning gears on it until this project, so I’m really excited to share this project at the expo!

 

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3 Comments. Leave new

  • Chip Bollendonk
    May 4, 2016 12:19 pm

    Sreyas, its neat to go back and see the progress you were making a few weeks ago. Its pretty evident that you’re going through the “user centered design” sort of design loop (maybe subconsciously) for this project. I think you wouldn’t ever be able to predict the necessity of designing labels into your gears, but I imagine that you’ll be able to predict that same sort of confusion on the next project you’re doing.

    You don’t go into it much here, but I also recognize the progression of the locking features inside of the toy. Again, good use of redesigning until you’ve gotten the model where you want it to be.

    Reply
  • Ryan Yankowsky
    April 17, 2016 5:55 pm

    Great to see the project is up and running, sorry ha, like the fact you kept the intent of having other people be able to print and assemble the project on their own by adding the direction arrows to the gears. Any thoughts on adding a stepper motor to drive the thumb screw or are you sticking to manual?. As for colors I think you know where to go with those. Good work.

    Reply
  • Rachel Grosskrueger
    April 16, 2016 6:05 pm

    This is amazing! I think it’s really funny how we were warned against designing gears but here you are doing just that and making it work! I wish I could see the color scheme you went with but I guess that helps build the suspense and makes it that much more amazing when we see it in person! I am very excited to see what the final product looks like.

    Reply

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