Upgrading my robot - Clank 

Might I suggest a removable goatee, attached via magnets so he can double as Klunck

So when is the Heli-Pack upgrade vid

Here's a tip I was given: a blob of nail polish can help convince a screw to stay put long enough to get through the day. Easier to find than Loctite when you're in a bind, and non-permanent.

a power switch was a good idea. pulling the thing out a lot will eventually break it.

Just wanted to say I just saw your clank building videos and I’ve been hooked. I really respect the extra work you put into this. Very good work!

Blue loctite on those set screws is pretty much a necessity to stop them from backing out. Even with the larger size you have there.

upgrade suggestions: Metalic based paint to Electroplate, increases part strength (does increase weight) Movement sensors in the body to have clank react to people around him. Webserver hosted on the pi (promotional / about the project, or the possibility to update clank via wifi [git server], remote reboot, etc) Usb recharge port & battery management system to make recharging clank easier.

Your vid just popped up on my recommendations , neat Clank setup, looks like the real thing! When I saw you solder the two wires together I immediately thought 'solder seal connectors', they are simple heatshrink with solder inside them, you just slip in the bare cables and apply heat, it's a game changer if you don't have them yet 😊

Ever since watching the 1st video I've been wanting to build my own Clank, so much so I have been shopping around and pricing the materials, downloading and learning python, and saving my money to buy the material you used in this video to make my own. I have so many friends who are encouraging me to build my own clank, thank you for being the starting point and inspiration to make me wanna try to make my own

I’ve run into the same issue with polarity being different on my batteries and the device they plug into. You can usually use an exacto knife or small flathead screwdriver to pop the metal pins out of the sockets and then swap them to match. Way better than risking fires and fried electronics.

In terms of the omnidirectional join, if you want to be really sure it doesn't fail again, drill a little dent (or file) in a place where the grab screw will be and use blue loctite to secure the grab screw in place. That will hold basically forever.

the half framerate eyes go really well with the servo jitter. he looks like he's animated on the 2s, really cool effect

great surprise to find another clank video in my feed. I feared I had seen the last of the little guy.

She gave Clank "a MUCH bigger piece of hardware"... Oh *my*...

Thanks for doing this, I love his ariel on top of his head! So cute, I want to pat his head!!

Very nice! Thanks to your inspiration, I'm sitting here looking at a half-size Clank 3D print on my desk as I watch your vid.

Awesome build BTW, the ratchet and clank series has been a favourite of mine for a while now. Fantastic videos to see

Seeing the bootup screen in the eye is strangely fitting it seems :D Great work!

itll be super cool when he looks at you and can converse via ai I love clank, you did such a good job Congrats!

i love this little series!... i want you to make more things lol

You just motivated me to upgrade my animatronic Alfred Packer skeleton for Halloween.

Awesome project, first video earned my subscription. I hope you do more animatronics in the future!

R&C has been my favorite game franchise since I was a kid, back on the good old PS2 still to this day R&C 1,2,3 are my most favorite games ever. I love you Clank you did such a good job, and the eye animations really help bring the little guy to life.

What I did once with a slipping connection joint was adding a left turning nut up against the slipping mechanical connection. And tighten them both at the same time and if dienst go anywhere. It’s the same they do in industrial connections that shouldn’t come loose.

Love him, he looks so good.

I did the exact same thing. But I purchased battery holders that had the wrong labels on the metal connectors. I was holding the battery holder when it happened. The darn thing started to glow white. I had to throw them on the ground. It was crazy. Your Clank looks crazy cool.

Lovely quality upgrades. The switches fix some very big potential failure points. Glad Clank will see more convention floors. ❤

Make him talk! Random quotes or by remote.

Yeah, certain companies love to swap the "polarity" on their batteries by doing this shit, all it takes is one exciting puff to get real intimate into paying attention to this inconsistency. Can generally release and reset the pins on the given battery if you're using a mixed set of batteries or a variety of hardware sources. Honestly I don't really get why one company in particular does this, but It's the only gripe I have with them so, I just make sure to check. Good job on the repairs/upgrades!

you should integrate some sort of ai that can respond to questions using clank's voice

I have found with anything that needs usb power that you might need to plug in and out a lot, its is real handy to use the magnetic usb cables. :) I have them on my headphones, VR headset, mobile, tablet, my arcade build, etc :) and pop a dab of nail polish on the tread of the grub screw to help hold it into place :)

As others have said; loctite the threaded bolts and set-screws. Loctite comes in many flavors; Red & Green are no-no's, Blue and White are your friends. Blue on the bolt threads and the white on the set-screws. Secondly, for any electrical circuit with a removable battery you should add a diode to prevent reversing the polarity. When I build my PCBs, I place a cheap Bridge Rectifier on the power input after the disconnect switch. A bridge will allow you to attach the battery in any direction as it will 'rectify' the polarity. Attach the battery leads (after the disconnect switch) to the two AC inputs of the bridge and the Plus and Minus will always be Plus and Minus. You will loose 1.2 vdc due to the forward bias of 0.6 vdc of the diodes; if this is a big deal you can add a 7805 or a 7812 DC regulator and a larger battery (see the spec sheet). Another suggestion would be a fuse or two to protect the lil guy. Cool project!

@2:00 feel your pain. I always try to design for disassembly after a few tough projects.

No, it was not your fault! No one checks to see that a battery's red wire is actually positive and the black wire is actually negative. These are standards and it was obviously the battery manufacturer's fault. And it could have had much worse results, even a potentially deadly fire! I once pointed out that same problem on a site which purported to give the 'correct' connections on an XT60 connector. If that page was used as a wiring guide, when a high-amperage battery got connected it would have been a real problem. (I once had a friend who connected wires wrong on a car battery, and when they began to smoke he, in a quick reaction, tried to pull them apart by pulling on the wires; he was badly burned. So glad you did not try that!)

Crank is cool nice job, your really good ,beautiful

Simply Amazing!

Great problem solving, excellent upgrades!

Dang bro got that robotic gagadigadogadago iv been married a long time ago but the sad Napoleon version in the start 😔

Love your patience and determination 🙂

“Orange & Gray is the New Red & Black”. :D. I love it. But seriously, I’m very glad to hear that the “unauthorized thermal event” didn’t do any more damage than it did. Sometimes you can remove the crimped pins from the connector housing and put them back in the “correct” sequence, i.e., matching your preferred color coordination pattern. Keep up the good work! You’ve got an amazing prop that does some extraordinary things.

I really love how you show the process to us. The good and the bad

At least the battery wasn't in Clank at the time, and you weren't hurt!

beautiful work! I've been watching this build from the beginning, loved every step. thanks for the vids !

Make sure that the grub screw has a flat end and not a concave shape as the flat end will hold better. Would be worth grinding an area flat where the grub screw touches too.

i do hope that you put his arms on, glad you didnt fry the robot 😊

This was such a cool series of videos! I've always wanted to see someone make a real Clank robot. I'm excited to see what you do next!

Really nice work! I have tinkered with electronics, computers and 3D printers for years but I've never delved into robotics. I'm very impressed with your results! Don't worry, most of my time is fixing my mistakes, too.

You've done such a great job, are you planning on continuing to iterate? Face tracking so he's looking at people when he's talking to them maybe?

I'd recommend getting some LocTite. It's a very liquid glue for screw threads. I tried using it on the same size of universal joints, and LocTite was actually a bit too liquid and wanted to gum them up, but after working them for a bit to free up the joint, I haven't had an issue with the joints coming off my screws.

I built a wall-e robot to take to comicons, the first con it broke down constantly it didn't make it past the first day , I replaced and beefed the broken parts , second con he made it through but it was easy to identify what needed improvement Rinse and repeat, today he's quite robust but I am still modifying and improving it as I see what can be better.

Fantastic build. I love the videos you have shared on this project. Thank you

6:40 This is why "The Pen is Blue" is such an iconic scene. Our brains do not function well with intentionally broken logic

Incredible work

Ill note, I almost got caught with the same colour battery issue, company's batteries were swapped from the ends I got, ended up using a sharp point to remove the wires from their connector port and swapping them to the other side

A drop of locktite on the grub screw should help it from comming undone. Would also suggest getting a safeshutdown setup for turning your pi on and off multiple times in a day.

You should make daxter from jak and daxter and make it so he can stand on your shoulder lol

alternate source for u-joints is RC car spares. you might also want a smoke stopper. basically a polyfuse for prototyping.

A lot of Chinese companies seem to have difficulty understanding or respecting the red/black color code standards. My hobby is 3D printing and I've had to replace fans and it's a tossup whether the new fan will have the colors assigned to the correct polarity. This wouldn't be so bad if the fan simply didn't spin when reversed but some of the circuit boards on the fans will get hot and fry when connected backwards. And not all of them mark the polarity on those boards. As a result I used Noctua fans when possible (they are Austrian) but they have been asleep at the switch with regards to building 24 volt fans so you use something else or you can put in a buck-buck board to lower the voltage but sometimes the fan doesn't respond properly to PWM control after that. Excellent job on Clank!

On the all tread rod that’s for his neck where you connect the U-Joint you can always grind a flat spot so the set screw has a flat surface to work better and you can always use a dab of blue loc-tite

great mods to Clank!

I had the same problem with my multi directional axle at my first con as well.I got mine from McMasters and I had to tap the screws through the axle and into the neck rod to resolve my issue. Currently I am also upgrading my Spider-cat to reduce the weight and to make him more life-like.

Excellent job. For clarification purposes, that component is not an "omnidirectional screw" it is called a universal joint. Just in case anyone wanted to look for one. It's just a universal joint.

It looks like the upgraded servos have stood up to real world usage now!

they call her "the surgeon"

I don't mean to seem rude if you grind flat spot into those threads grub screw will work better. A little bit of Loctite on the threads would help

Amazing!

just need to connect him to google home or some thing so you can ask questions and have him answer

Golly gee what a joyfully boy

Awesome!

There is code to make a safe power on/off for a rpi switch. I put one into a device that was for a twitch streamer and it was a while back but it was pretty easy, just a soft push switch for on and the same button for off.

Yeah that universal joint won't seat properly unless you have a nice flat spot. You could use a jam nut instead.

An engineer ! Cool. :O)

When i run into those color mismatches I pull the pins out from the non standard one and swap them. Because in a couple of years when I need to mess with it again I might forget. or if I hand it off to someone else they won't have a clue.

this is very very cool

thats so cool

So cool!!!

why not wire some external buttons under a foot or something? surely that would be easier to access rather than taking off the front every time.

Make sure you have full backups of the uSD in the rPi because it WILL FAIL during normal use, especially without shutting down the Pi from a console etc. I'm speaking from years of experience using Pis in products :-)

Starting at about 04:42 in this video: *_"Measure ONCE, Cut TWICE."_* *_"Measure TWICE, Cut ONCE."_* {BEEN THAT, DONE THERE...😉}

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

This is so fantastic. I wouldn't know where to start with the mechanics and electrics. He's brilliant. I'm just wondering though, if you'd considered using circular displays for the eyes, or are the available sizes completely wrong?

he is so beautiful, I tried to build my own clank several times but always failed.

Will you ever release the model so we can print build one of these maybe an instructional step by step to we can all print and build our own clank ? He’s one of my favorite robot

who here appriciates an awesome heatshrink job?

Just imagine clank not compacted, aka a standing version

are you for any chance going to make kit

Why not get a double pole switch and switch them bot on at once? lol And have Version 2 also talk? ;-)

I did this with pre brought connectors for my led mask I was building and my feather prop board started smoking 😬

Just needs the hand panels to wiggle and some voice lines synced up

I really wanna see some ChatGPT integration....

Voice next?

Are you gonna make rivets arm next😂

Not gonna lie seeing clank in a dead like state kinda traumatising

Next is to get it so he talks.

More focus on the work, less focus on your face. Your voice is really enough to explain what you're doing.