Terminator T-1

 It has been a long journey from the initial cardboard template to the final T-1-FNY

Like all builds they go through distinct phases and she is now in the final stages, the fine touches.

This is where the elements of personality and realism are added. All those small details that were not really important in the construction phase have now been added.

All the wiring in the upper section has now been tidied up and extra cooling added to the Raspberry Pi 4 computer

The old metal connectors to the upper section have now been replaced with waterproof plastic ones. They are still screw lock but much stronger.

Some of the metal done nuts have been replaced with fibre to try and reduce the weight

Much larger LiFePO4 Battery.

Calibrated the Amp and low section volt meter.

Tread pattern added to tracks.

An extra 5v output.

External limit switches fitted to the top lift

Read section added to head

Gun covers added, apparently required when we go to shows as people might think the guns were real???

Face mouldings added

Starting to build all her accessories ready for the Show in May 

So what is still left to add. We have been working very hard on developing the show which T-1-FNY stars in which will have its first showing at the NEC on the 13/14 May 2023.

In terms of technology that is still to be added I will be doing a bit more work with the object recognition and seeing if I can get anymore out of the Raspberry Pi 4. The problems I am encountering are that these small computers like the raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano are simply not powerful enough to run accurate object recognition. If I want to control the robot via these systems I need much more computing power so it looks like she might have to be tethered when in this mode, connecting her to a more powerful computer. I will see, still loads to do with this. 

What I would really like to do is make the guns a bit more realistic. The main problem I have with them is that they need to be lightweight. Even adding Airsoft mechanisms to the main system adds too much weight. The only way I would be able to add a firing effect to them is find a way to do it without adding so much weight that it will cause the upper and lower lift motors to much stress. Time to put my thinking hat on.