Contact: jamieaprice@yahoo.com |
The first acquisition was a plexiglass dome that was sold as a bird feeder cover. Since the clear dome was an important design feature and there were so few options, the bots dimensions were designed around this one piece. Form over function. Also in the initial design was a 6-bottle liquor shot dispenser. (BaR2D2 now sports a custom water jet-cut computerized drink mixer) Once I got some dimensions figured out, a series of circles was cut from thick plywood to give the bot its initial shape. These were cut using a fixed center point and a router table. Some of the circles were solid, while the ones at the top of the structure had knockouts for the liquor area. Next, vertical stringers were cut and notched with a dado blade for a tongue and groove type fit. The bot is assembled like a puzzle. The main pieces of the structure were then screwed and glued together and primed and sanded. This structure was then sprayed with black truck bed liner to give it an industrial feel. The next design feature built was the beer turntable or “Beer Sprocket” and elevator. This mechanism holds the beers and a gear motor rotates the next beer in line to the beer elevator (think motorized lazy Susan.) The elevator then brings the beer to the top table area. Once the elevator goes back down, the next beer in line is advanced. The actuator I used was taken from a Harbor Freight cordless caulk gun as this had a good size and speed and would work within the design. The actuator is controlled via a Team Delta relay board. The system currently uses a series of limit switches to accomplish the advance sequence. Beer loading is done via a load door and a switch to reverse the table. White led lights illuminate the beer area. On this first version of BaR2D2, cooling for the beers is provided via a steel cylinder in the middle that uses either freeze gel or dry ice. Co2 is being considered for an upgrade. 1/16” clear polycarbonate sheet encloses the beer area. Early on in the design, I was lucky enough to stumble across a used electric mobility scooter on Craig’s List for a crazy price of $75. These things are built to last and have a solid drive train that would mesh perfectly with the design. Once I stripped all the unnecessary parts and reconfigured the frame, the bot had a motorized drive train and nice bottom heavy support for the structure to bolt to. (2) 15” Blue neon rings were purchased from an online supplier. These were mounted to the top two rings and illuminate the liquor area. An added feature is that they can be switched to pulse to music. Next was the construction of the motorized drawer that holds a 6 pack of drinks/mixers and has a backlit removable ice bin. This is actuated via the radio controller using a Team Delta relay board and limit switches. The drawer was constructed of plywood, insulated, and mounted to drawer slides. A gear motor with a friction wheel is attached to the back of the drawer. When actuated, the wheel turns making contact with the floor of the bot powering the drawer in and out from the remote. Illumination is provided with white led lights. BaR2D2 is powered by a 12 volt, 35 amp hour sealed lead-acid battery and has an onboard wall charger. To get this power to the motors, (2) IFI Victor 883 speed controllers are used with a Futaba 6 channel radio controller/receiver. Currently, the radio uses 2 channels for drive, 1 for the drawer, 1 for the elevator, and 1 for an R2D2 sound effects board for added personality. BaR2D2’s body work is created from blue 1/8” expanded PVC sheet. It is easily machined/cut and can be heat formed. It is held to the bot with screws. The blue body accented with various sizes of chrome trim (about 60 feet of it!) BaR2D2’s most recent addition is the custom computerized drink mixer. This tower is made from water-cut aluminum plate and holds six ingredient bottles. Two small compressed air tanks pressurize the ingredient bottles. Siphon out-tubes push the ingredients to six solenoid valves. These open and close to control the dispensing. The valves are controlled by a Lazydrinker circuit board and software that allow you to select and make thousands of drinks in the database as well as custom make your own. Planned upgrades include: Additional LED lighting |
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