My Animatronic C-3P0 Project

Now that I have 2 astromechs done with basic construction. I'm moving forward on a plan I had over 6 years ago to create a full sized animatronic C-3P0.

I started with a SPT200 Direct Drive Pan & Tilt System I bought from Servo City and I put the kit together. It's rated to move around 2 pounds which is exactly what my fiberglass C-3P0 head weighs.

 I got parts of an awesome 3P0 from Randy over at SithPlanet.

 I marked on the neck area where I need to drill out the holes needed to mount the lower servo. I'm not using the black plastic lower mounting plate at this point because that is going to be replaced by the neck section.

So it turned out this was pretty easy to do. Now I have the pan and tilt head installed and mounted to the body. For now I'm not using the droids neck area yet so I can adjust and see if I can get this all to function.

After checking out some height issues of how high or low I can place the head onto this pan head and still keep it movie accurate. I drilled out 2 areas on the side of the pan head and added stand offs for 10-32. This will be used to connect the pan head to the 3P0 head.

The 3P0 had its earring fastened to the head with 10-32 bolts that fastened to a nut to the neck section. So I just bolted them into my stand offs I got from Acehardware. I was wondering if I tighten this too much the earrings would strip out but they held up to alot of pressure. This got me pretty tight but I later added a flat bar (not pictured) over the pan head and by adding that it make this rock solid.

Here is my first test video of it. It seems to work. The servos will need to be slowed down and the EPA needs to be adjusted so they don't hit any part of the body they shouldn't. I'm not sure just yet how to get the servos to stop growling. But this wasn't too bad for a couple of hours of work.

To be continued...