Half Scale Working Wall-E (WIP)

I'm Dean Herdewijn a Student in Multimedia Creative Technologies and for my first year project I'm building a half scale wall-e. Wall-e in the movie collects trash & compacts its but, in real life this is not posible yet (nor has anyone tried). I wanted him to still tell you somethings about the envirement. So this halfs scale walle scoots around, moves his head, eyebrows & arms. He measures the Co2 in the air in ppm, temprature, humidity, light intensetie & gps location of where this took place.

So let me guide you on how to build you own half scale wall-E like i build him.

You need a lot of supplies and time for this project.

In the attached file you will find the bill of materials.

The 3d printing alone took about 1-2 full weeks op 3d printing. Depends on your 3d printer ofcourse.

Everything I printed was done on a Creality ender 3.

I would start with this because this will take the most amount of time. Here are all the stl files for the project. For the thank treads, connecting rods & the neck I would recommand more infill and walls because these part are generally more strained.

You will need:

For the Tank treads

1. tank threads x 66
2. Thank Thread Lingage x 120
3. Front Gear x 4
4. Driving Gear x 2
5. Outer Gear x 2
6. Wheel Connector x 8
7. Body Track Connector Left x1
8. Body Track Connector Right x1

For the Arms

1. Schoulder Joint x 2
2. ShoudlerRod x 2
3. Wrist x2
4. Arms x2
5. Hand x2
6. Hand Rod x2

For the Eyes

1. FrontEyeLeft x1
2. FrontEyeRight x1
3. EyeRod x2
4. BackEyeLeft x1
5. BackEyeRight x1
6. EyebrowLeft x1
7. EyebrowRight x1

For the Neck

1. BottomNeck x1
2. EyeNeckConnctor x1
3. MiddleNeck x1

You do need a few hand tools, power tools & most importantly safety equipement.

1. Safety glasses (No normal glasses don't count!)
2. Protection mask for aluminium dust
3. Soldering iron
4. Tin
5. Cable cutters
6. Flush cutter
7. Utility Knife
8. Multimeter
9. Metal Saw
10. Metal file
11. Drill with drills M22, M5 & M3
12. Angle grinder and or metal cutting saw

For the M22 I would recommand a hole saw because those are cheaper then a whole M22 drill.

I personnaly used a M22 Wood hole drill. It wasn't the best for drilling the alluminium but for the 4 holes i needed to drill it was more then enough but, it's looking that sharp anymore.

For the soldering what you will need to do a lot of do it in a well ventilated area.

You will need to clone the git repository and put these files on the Raspberry pi 5 sd card. https://github.com/HerdewijnDean/Scrap-E

If you download the these files make sure to make a virutal envirement for the python code so if you mes something up only the virutual enirement is ruinend.

Install the requirements.txt into the virtual envirement so that all the libraries are included for this project to work.

Now appache 2 should be installed run these command in the folder where you put the project.

This tells apache where to look for the right files to run the website.

sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/*

sudo cp -r /.../Scrap-E/Frontend/* /var/www/html/

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Then for the backend run these.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/scrap-e.service

Then in nano.

[Unit]

Description=Scrap-E Backend

After=network-online.target mariadb.service

Wants=network-online.target

[Service]

Type=simple

User=student

WorkingDirectory=/home/student/Scrap-E/Backend

ExecStart=/home/student/Scrap-E/.scrap_virtual/bin/python /home/student/Scrap-E/Backend/Scrap_e.py

Restart=on-failure

RestartSec=5

Environment=PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save with

Ctrl + O

Enter

Ctrl + X

Run these command to enable it when the system start.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

sudo systemctl enable scrap-e.service

sudo systemctl start scrap-e.service

You will need to alter the brackets for the nema motors a bit there slots are made for M4 screws but the aluminium extrusion fits better for the M5 screw.

So I filled these:

1. Nema 23 bracket x2
2. Nema 17 bracket x2

The flat bracket for the neam 17 didn't need filling or drilling because that was made for M5 Screws.

So I took a narrow metal file clambed the brackets into the vice and filled them until an M5 screw fitted into the slot.

After that I marked the aluminium frame for where to cut it. And then drilled and or grinded the markings out.

Chekc the Top Markings & Bottom Marking stl files for where to cut these.

I also filled the grind cut outs so they where less sharp and safer to work around.

I also cut the aluminium extrusions to length. These are the lengths you need.

1. 200mm x2 (for the tank threads)
2. 235mm x2 (for internal
3. 260mm x1

I woul recmmand you follow the shematics because following the rat nest of cables i added to the pcb is an adventure or, a needle in a haystack.

You can download the profided fritzing shematic so its easier for you to follow.

Sanding 3D prints is not fun but here are a few tips:

1. clean your sandpaper ofter
2. Dont use to rough of a grid

Why would you want sand a 3D print? To hide the layer lines so they dont show up in painting.

Why is it so difucult to sand? You are literaly melting the plastic while sanding and that fills up the sandapaper so it becomes useless.