K9 Diaries - 4 days to go

Dog tag

Its come down to the last 4 days now, and I've persuaded Debs to make me a collar, and I 3D printed a dog tag.

The construction was easy enough, she covered a strip of leather with some tartan fabric and added some Velcro to the edges to fasten it. 

The D ring that the tag hangs from was taken off a collar that once belonged to her dog Mitzie, who died 17 years ago now, Debs kept her collar and thought it fitting to use a part of her beloved dogs collar on my beloved doggie project.


The 3D printing in the tag didn't stand out as much as I would have liked, so Debs applied a couple of layers of 'Empire Gold' Pebeo Gilding Wax to the raised areas, she likes it when she gets to use her hobby on our robotic projects.

head, primer and more filling

Unfortunately with just 4 days to go to the event, K9's head isn't ready yet and I've not figured out how to attach it to the body and its becoming obvious  that more filling is required.

After drilling the holes for K9's ears, and the visor cut-out, I primered the top of the head.

Debs seems to be getting worried, and keeps asking me if it will be ready in time! Whats that all about?

After a bit of sanding it'll be on to the top coat.

So I nearly have a head, but it is time to be thinking of having a couple of days off work to give K9 a better chance of being ready :)

 

top primer

Now the control panel is painted, I can move on to assembling the components. The bezels I've printed fitted into the 2 large holes and the 12 indicator lamps took no time at all to fit. If there is time, I'll fit 4 momentary switch contacts to the top 4 switches, and use these as manual operators of the ears etc

Wiring the control panel is time consuming, and the software for the Arduino isn't started, let alone complete.

Fortunately it's not a difficult job as there are plenty of resources out there for Arduino, and the experience with programming the Chompalots eyes and walker robots servo sequencing has put me in good stead.