I have a couple of pictures of my prototype. I will take a bunch of new pictures as I make the other three skulls, but this should give you an idea of what I am doing. I am making a singing quartet based on (That means idea stolen from) Mike C's Graveyard Quartet. Ever since I saw his video I couldn't get it out of my head. A neighbor of mine with a machine shop has helped me with the prototype, machining some of the parts I needed, and helping with the design. I have been using the prototype to do some programming to make sure it all works with Brookshire's VSA software. So far, so good. I will post detailed pics of every step as I start making more skulls, but for now, here's a couple of basic shots with labels on them.

The Jaw servo was not mounted yet in this pic. It is in now. You can see the mounting screws and the linkage wire in the pic. The servo mounts standing up on end. I will add pictures of that later. The eyelid servo is mounted under the plexi-glass. That one is not hooked up yet, but when it is, it will be attached to one of the eyeballs...I am using wooden balls for eyes. It will move it up and down, not side to side. The purpose is to make it appear that it is blinking. I have large fake eyelases that will be attached to the eyeballs. When the eye is moved down, it appears to be closing as the top eyelid moves down with it. In the pic below, you can see the slot cut in the eye socket where the armature will go to move the eyeball. Don't worry, I will post pictures of that as well. I am using a 3/16 rod end as the gimbal which allows movement in all directions. When I build the next one, I will have clear shots of that as well.

Feel free to ask questions, and I will answer as best I can. I now have it hooked up to VSA and it is working very well. I am using the lightweight Pirate Skull and so I do not need springs, elastics or counterweights. If memory serves me right, the rod ends I purchased were part number 2458K111 fom http://www.mcmaster.com The exact specs really aren't that important. Anything even close to this will work fine. The only thing is that the rod you slip through it must be the same diameter as the

opening of the rod end. The main piece that I had machined for me was the rod that sticks up through the ball joint rod end. I don't have a good picture of it yet, as the only one I have is mounted in the prototype skull at the moment, but here is a drawing I made and a description:

I don't have the exact dimentions, but as long as you make it to fit whatever coupler you

are using and whatever rod-end you are using it will work fine. The actual dimentions should be something close, but are not that important. The rod starts out thicker, somewhere around 1/4 20 bolt size at the bottom with threads cut into it so that it will fit in the threaded rod coupler I bought at the hardware store. The shaft extends up for about 3" or so and is then shaved down with a flare so as not to restrict movement as it goes into the rod end, but it keeps the rod end from moving any lower onto the shaft. Above the rod end I have a thin spacer made of nylon. At that point, the shaft is threaded again. The threads match the two nuts that are attached here. The portion of the shaft going through the rod end is not threaded. It probably wouldn't make any difference, however. The first nut is tightened down over the spacer and holds the rod end tightly in place. Then a small aluminum arm is placed on the shaft with another nut on top to hold it in place. This arm sticks out towards the back of the skull and is for the servo which controls Rotation (left right movement) to attach to. The very top of this rod has a small hole drilled in it in the center and it is threaded (inside threads) for a 4/40 screw. This screw can be seen in the picture in my first post. It holds the two armatures from the other two servos in place. They control the nod movement (up and Down) and the tilt movement of the skull. So there are your 3 axis' I will post another picture of the skull mech including the jaw servo shortly. To answer the question posted above, the shape of the Pirate Skull by Lindberg (http://www.lindberg-models.com/71302_pirate_skull.htm) allows me to drill a small hole behind the jaw and extend the rod end male threads through that hole, attaching a nut on the either side.

I had to bend the threaded end of the rod end slightly to acieve the correct angle. This was done by putting it in a vice, heating it up a bit placing a steel tube approximatley the same diameter around it and banging it gently with a hammer. Be careful not to damage the threads or snap them off. I would buy a couple extra rod ends for practice. I didn't need much of an angle, maybe 10 or 15 degrees. I didn't measure, I just did it by eye. In that last picture, you can also see where and how I mounted the Jaw servo into the plexi plate and attached the jaw wire through a hole drilled in the skull. Exact location of the hole is not important. just find a spot that doesn't show too much and allows you to hook up to the lower jaw. sweet bob you are the man, thanks for showing us this. and email more when you can if you could show us a picture of the rod and neck mec with out the skull on it that would be great. Is the neck rod all one peice that runs up into the rod end? if so then I get the point. Yes, it is all one piece. My friend machined it on a lathe and added the theads, changed the diameter, etc. Thanks guys. I did design it (For the most part) myself. I had decided to use a rod end as my main motion component, and played around with layout if servos for some time. After I had decided on a layout, I came across Twisted Dementa's version of the 3 Axis Skull. It was almost identical to what I had laid out! After seeing that, I knew I was on the right track. (http://twisteddementia.com) Anyway, I have been busy programming routines for the last few weeks. I have one complete and two others in process. I have just now started building my other 3 skulls. I will be uploading detailed pictures in the next few days Can you tell me if you purchased the small aluminum arm or made that yourself? If you are talking about the small aluminum arm that extends from the center rod just above the rod end, yes, I made that. It was just cut from a piece of aluminum. Then I drilled a hole in the end and tapped it so I could screw in the linkage from the servo which rotates the skull left and right. You could just drill a hole and use a nut on the other side if you don't have a tap set. Was that what you were asking about? I just finished making the additional 3 Plexi-Glass inserts that you mount the servos to. I actually made them out of 1/4 inch Lexan. Here are two of the finished products (I have 4 all together now):

Making these was easy because I was able to use the right tools! My neighbor with the machine shop has a drill press with a CNC X-Y table under it, so the square holes were cut with a router bit in the drill press, and I adjusted the table which was holding the lexan from side to side and up and forward and back the cuts. This picture is one I found on the net of a similar machine. I didn't take a pic of my freinds press.

Anyway, I used the drill press to cut the square holes and to make all the holes for the screws that I later tapped with a 440 thread tap bit. I cut out the main outer shape with a bandsaw and then filed the edges with a buffing wheel. The large center hole was cut with a bit similar to a doorknob hole cutter, just smaller. I have an actual size template that you can download and print out. I used this template to cut all the pieces of Lexan. First, I sprayed some 3M spray adhesive on the back of the paper template, then stuck it to the protective paper coating on the lexan. Once it dried, I cut a rectangle out of the lexan around the glued paper template making sure that the outside edges were parallel

with the square hole cuts I needed to make for the servos. So I had a rectangle shaped piece of lexan that had a piece of paper glued to it with my template design printed on it. Here is the template: TEMPLATE Right Click on the above link and select "Save Target As" from the right Click Menu. Print the file using the windows Picture and Fax Viewer full page to get the correct size. There are ruler marks on the left edge of the image. If they are one inch apart, then you have printed it to scale. Here is what I mean by the edges being parallel to the square holes:

Then I was able to put the lexan into the CNC table and cut the square holes easily with the drill press. If they weren't parallel, I would have to make constant adjustments and

would not have been able to make straight edges. Here is what the plate looks like with a servo through one of the holes:

And finally here is how the plate fits into the skull:

The back end of the plate is mounted right at the top edge of the skull with two screws which go through the skull and into the edge of the lexan. The front is screwed down to the inside base of the skull between the eyes using the single hole at the very bottom of the template. It rests in the skull at an angle on purpose. When the lexan plate is parallel to the ground surface, the skull is lifted up slightly and seems to be looking straight ahead instead of looking down. This provides a "Center" spot with range of motion in both up and down directions. This template is made specifically to fit the "Pirate Skull" by lindberg. It is a lightweight skull kit that can be found in many places such as this one: http://www.monstersinmotion.com/cata...ducts_id/10457

I will post more pics and instructions when I finish making the custom rods I will be using that fit through the rod ends. Right Click on the link to "TEMPLATE", and choose "Save Target As" from the right click menu. Save the image on your hard drive. I have added a bunch of lines on the left hand border of the picture that are exactly one inch apart. After you print the image, check it with a ruler to be sure that it is actual size. Once it is saved on your hard drive, double click on the image and let the windows "Picture And Fax Viewer" open up. Click on the printer icon at the bottom and follow the prompts printing the item full page. It should come out the correct size that way. The servos I am using are Hitec HS-425BB servos. http://www.servocity.com/html/hs-425..._sport_bb.html Most servos are the same standard casing size, however. At the beginning of this thread I mentioned that I had bent the threaded end of the Rod End to achieve the correct angle. Turns out that was a bad idea. I must have bent the casing slightly when I did that, and the rod end became VERY stiff, exerting extra pressure on the servos making it difficult for them to move the skull smoothly. I have rethought this and decided to make a minor modification to the skull which will allow me to mount the rod end at the correct angle without any alterations to the rod end. Here is the skull before I started the mod. Note the shape of the neck hole:

That's a view from the top, now here's the same skull from the bottom:

Now I start the modification. I needed a heat gun (Which I had) and a pair of plyers with wide grip ends. You will see it in the pictures. Setting the skull upside down on a piece of metal to absorb the heat, I started heating the area around the neck hole:

Once the plastic became soft and pliable, I got my plyers and grabbed the plastic area that I was going to attach the rod end into:

Very slowly, I moved the plyers upwards to change the angle of the mounting area for the rod end:

When I was done, it looked like this:

Then, I had to drill the hole for the rod end. I discovered that by changing the angle of that area, I no longer had a clear shot in there with a drill, so I used the edge of the drill bit to carve a small slot in the plastic which allowed me to hit the right area with the bit. Here's what it looked like:

Cutting through here...here's what the slot looked like:

Then it was time to make the hole:

So now, this is what the skull looked like...Top view:

And bottom view:

All that was left was to mount the rod end, which went something like this:

And here's the bottom view:

Thought I would share that bit of info. And Blinky, I will have them all done and operational for this year! Thanks! I get most of my hardware from http://McMasterCarr.com. Go to that website and enter Part # 59915K271 in the search window. They are about $9.00 each. Are you using the standard 90 degree rotation on your servos? and standard clockwise? Yes. Although the range I need to use is much less than that, everything I purchased or set up was standard. Are you using the same servos for the Jaw and eyelids? They look smaller or something.. Also what servo arms are you using?

All servos are the same except for the one controlling the eyelid action. That is a much smaller Hitec HS 65HB servo. Remember, that my eyes are not going to move back and forth, instead they will appear to blink. The servo arms, I go at Servo City. They are very small (http://www.servocity.com/html/2-56x3_16__mini.html) I use bits of 2-56 threaded rod to hold the two ends together. I have completed some more of my skeleton Quartet, and wanted to share some more "In Progress" pictures for anyone who might be following this project. I'll start with all the linkages, since that's where I left off before. This is what the linkage pieces look like. In the next picture, I have two linkage ends and one long 2-56 threded rod from McMasterCarr.com (The linkages are from ServoCity.com...see link above)

I start by cutting a piece of the threaded rod. You might need to file the sharp edges off:

Then screw one linkage end on each end of the threaded rod piece as shown in the next diagram:

With my arrangement, most of the linkages end up touching each other with no rod showing inbetween. It just worked out to be the right distance. If you need one to be longer, just don't screw them together all the way. You shouldn't need any to be shorter, but if you did, you could snip a little off each of the linkages with wire cutters. They are made of plastic. Anyway, next, we want to attach the linkages to the servos. I opened up the bag of servo armatures that came in the package from HiTec. I started with the armature shown in this picture:

I cut off one side of the arm, since it wasn't needed, and might hit the edge of the skull if left there.

Then I needed to tap one of the holes for a 2-56 screw. For the nod and tilt servo, I tapped the hole farthest to the outside. For the rotate servo, I tapped the center hole:

Then I mounted the armature onto the servo:

And finally screwed the linkage onto the armature using a 5/8ths inch long #2-56 screw into the hole that I just tapped:

Always be sure that when the servo arm is in the "Rest" position, which is how it is shown in the last photo, that it is set so that the servo is roughly "centered". As soon as you apply power and control wires to the servo, it will attempt to find it's "center" position. If you just screw the arm on without checking to see if the servo is centered, it will move to the center position which could possibly be beyond the possible range of your skull once it is all hooked up. This could result in breaking something, stripping some threaded screw holes, or hurting the servo itself. So when you screw the arm on, swing it all the way in one direction, then the other and make sure that the center is just about as pictured above. Then, I worked on making the small steel armatures that attach to the center rod that goes through the rod end which is attached to the skull. I posted a drawing of this on the first page. I will have all 4 of my rods in the next few days, and will take pictures of those as soon as I get them. For now, here is the drawing again:

The thin piece of metal between the two nuts where it says, "Rotate Armature Attached Here" is the piece I made next. In the drawing, you are seeing a side view, so it doesn't look like much. Using the one my friend fabricated for my first complete rod as a model, I made three more. Mine didn't come out as pretty, but they will be just as functional. I started with a small random piece of steel.

Then I drew the shapes I needed to cut out with a sharpie and put it in a vise:

Next, with a hacksaw....a VERY DULL hacksaw, I did my best to cut out the pieces, and file the edges down. I put the three pieces back in the vise and drilled out the large holes where the rod goes through, then turned them over to drill and tap the holes that I will connect the linkages to that will rotate the skull left and right:

Finally, I tapped the holes:

And now I have all 4 of the rotate armatures needed for the central rods:

As I said, Mine were not pretty, but the holes are in the right places. My friend made the second one in. That's the one I copied. It does not have to be exact....thank goodness.

As I mentioned, I'll have a lot more detail on the central rod in the next few days. Finally, today, I drilled and tapped the holes that will hold the lexan plates I made the other day in place in the skulls. I found that the easiest way to get it lined up right was to drill holes where I wanted them in the skull first, then line up the lexan inside the skull and mark off where the holes come through. I didn't even measure. I made the holes about a half inch below the top of the skull and put one near the seam on each side. You can see the seam where the skull is put together if you look close. The holes look like this:

Just remember that the plate fits in at an angle. The back is near the top and the front get's screwed down to the inside of the skull. Here is the lexan placed in the skull after the holes were drilled in the skull:

Then, with a silver sharpie, I marked the spots where the holes come through the skull:

Then with the spots marked, I put the plate in the vise and drilled a small hole (Which I will later tap for a 4-40 screw) in the edge of the lexan:

Then, as I mentioned, I tapped the hole with a tap made for 4-40 screws, since that is what I will be using to hold the plates in:

If you look close, you can see the hole in the edge of the lexan in this picture:

Next, I will mount all the servos on the new plates, but I can't screw them into the skulls until I finish all the central rods and mount them to the rod ends in the skulls. I also still need to make the aluminum strips that hold the jaw servos in place. I'll document that another day. For the Jaw servo, I did use a different armature. I wanted a longer one, so I used a two part armature that came in the package with the servo. It includes a small square section that mounts right on the servo, then a long adjustable arm slides into that first piece. I set it all the way out. It looks like this:

I will not be using the linkage pieces I got from ServoCity.com for this servo. The jaw is moved by a piece of thin wire that I fit through the outermost hole in the armature. It then goes through a hole I drill in the skull and attaches to another hole I drill in the jaw. You can also see in that picture that I am going to cut off one side of the servo mounting brackets. I am doing this because this servo stands up on end. It needs to be flat on what will now be the bottom as it will be held in place with the aluminum strap I will be making. I could have cut a slot in the lexan for these mounting brackets to fit in. That would have been a better idea, but I didn't think of it until I was done with the lexan plates. It would not be easy to do that as an afterthought. So it was easier to chop off the brackets. After I cut them off, I filed the remaining stubs off like so:

One of these days, I'm going to spend that nickel! I mounted most of the servos on the lexan plates and wanted to post a pic of what they look like with the servos attached. I have not done the jaw servos yet, because I still need to make the aluminum brackets to hold them down. I wanted to show a picture so that you can see what the default "center" position should be for each of the servos. The picture below is the view from the bottom of the lexan plate showing the servo arms and linkages. Each of the servo arms is screwed in place as shown with an equal amount of motion possible in either direction. This is so when they get hooked up to the controller board and they center themselves, they should not move more than a few millimeters from where they are now. If you are following this project, please make note of which end the servo gear is mounted and the direction of each servo arm. They are measured out to meet up in the right places to connect to the center rod, which I will be posting pics of soon. Here is the pic:

You can also see where I drilled into the edge in two places and tapped the holes so I can screw this to the skull. Thanks HalloweenBob... please keep the pics coming.. I appreciate it very much! So you are attaching the lexan with a screw that goes through the skull??? do you notice those screws? Is that armature steel or aluminum? The screws are counter sunk and are towards the back of the skull. I plan to have a wig on one and hats on the others, so for me, they will not show. You could fill in over the screws with some wood putty or even spackle, or just paint the screws to match the skull color. It shouldn't be a problem. It's much more of a challenge to make the line where the skull cap is cut not be noticeable. Yes, the small armature is steel, but aluminum would also work fine. I think I did say it was aluminum at the beginning of the thread, but I was wrong. Don't think it makes a difference. It is not under any real stress. If you use aluminum, just be sure it's thick enough to be rigid.

Speaking of Aluminum, I did use some here for the clamps that hold down the jaw servo for each skull. First, since I did not cut a slot into the lexan plate, I had to shave off the mounting brackets on the side furthest away from the servo gear on the servo which will be controlling the jaw motion.

Then, I had to file down the stub that was left so the servo will sit flat on it's edge

Then it was time to make the brackets:

I started with some strips of aluminum I cut out with a hacksaw...(new blade this time) Then I measured out the dimensions of the servo casing leaving a half an inch on each

side for the 'feet' of the bracket.

I cut off the extra length with the hacksaw, then bent the aluminum strips on the marks I made so they would fit tightly around the servo. Here's what they looked like:

I checked them all by fitting them around one of the servos like so:

Then I drilled out the mounting holes. I used 4-40 screws again here to hold the brackets down, so use an appropriate drill bit for the screw you are using. Remember earlier when we made the lexan plates we tapped these holes for a 4-40 screw.

Finally, I mounted the bracket over the servo on the lexan plate. Here's a couple shots at different angles:

I thought I should take a minute to document how much money you might be spending to duplicate this project. First, I will list a bunch of misc. items that I did not pay for, because either myself, or my friend with the machine shop had laying around, so I didn't buy them, and I am not sure of the cost. These items are as follows: Tools - Including hacksaw and blades, heat gun, drill press, band saw, lathe (or the cost of hiring a machine shop) as well as standard tools, like screwdrivers, plyers, cutters, a vise, etc. Hardware - Extra pieces of steel, aluminum, welding wire, Threaded rods, nuts bolts and

screws, stain and paint, and whatever material you will use for the skull's body and clothes and a wig or hat if you decide to use one. A computer to run it all. (I did buy a dedicated machine for this, but it was an old used one from ebay for about $50.00 plus shipping. You may have an old one laying around. Wire to extend all the servo wires with to connect to the controller board. (I also bought multipin plugs and jacks to make the connection modular) Lights and a kit 74 or similar board if you plan on using it to enhance your setup. Cost will depend on how extravegant you plan to get. Now for the tangible costs. First, the skull itself. The Pirate Skull from Lindberg is between $15.00 and $20.00 at most retailers. We'll go with $20.00 because you will probably be paying shipping as well...so: skull - $20.00 5 servos - $70.00 Sheet of 1/4" Lexan - $18.00 Rod End - $9.00 Servo Linkages - $4.50 Bag of wooden balls from Michaels to make eyes with - $3.00 Brookshire Software's VSA - $55.00 Lynxmotion SSC-32 Servo Controller Board - $40.00 ...not letting your wife find out how much you spent - Priceless! Total cost for one skull like the one I am detailing in this thread not counting the misc. materials and tools mentioned above: $219.50 I wanted you to be prepared for the costs involved before starting. I am buliding 4 of these suckers! Of course, I only need to include the cost of the computer, VSA software, SSC-32 borad, kit74 board, sheet of lexan, etc once. They will control ALL the skulls, so the main expense for each additional skull is the servos, and the skull itself. Hope that doesn't scare anyone away! I know we don't scare easily around here. orgot about the power supply! I bought a 5 AMP 5 VDC supply on ebay for about $40.00 after shipping. Actually, it has one 5VDC 5 AMP output and 2 adjustable 2 AMP outputs - (0-12VDC) The exact type of power supply isn't all that important. What is important is that you have one that produces 5 or 6 volts DC with plenty of current. I hope mine is good enough for the task. I haven't tested it with all four skulls running at once. I hope to have all 4 skulls put together and ready to test next week. My power supply is giving me 5 VDC at 5 amps. It also has two additional outputs which

can provide 0 - 30 VDC at up to 1 amp each. I use the 5 AMP output for all the servos, and the other two outputs power the SSC-32 board and the Kit 74 board. (Earlier I said the extra two outputs were 0-12 VDC. That was a mistake. They are 0-30 VDC and each output is only 1 AMP. I was writing from memory and hadn't looked at the actual unit first.) Here is a picture of what I am using:

I found this on ebay while searching for DC power supply. It was a good price, so I bought it. Not very compact, but that isn't a problem in my situation. I will report back to let you know if a 5 AMP output is good enough to run 18 servos as soon as I get to test it out next week. Does anyone know off hand if I have made a mistake, or will the 5 AMP 5 VDC output be enough? My friend finally got me the rest of my center rods so I can put this whole group together. I wanted to outline this part for everyone as it is the central part to the whole project. First, Here it is completly unassembled:

Here are the dimensions and specs:

The only part that is missing is the rod end. The rod end is part of this assembly, but it is already mounted in the skull, so the center rod needs to be assembled in the skull. I will go through the order of assembly outside of the skull because it is easier to see that way. The only step that would be missing would be the first step where the rod is inserted into the rod end that is attached to the skull. After insertint the rod into the rod end, you would take the beveled spacer.....

It looks like this:

and slip it over the top of the center rod with the beveled side down like so:

The rod end would be filling the space you see between the bevel at the top of the wide portion of the center rod, and the beveled spacer. The rod itself, the beveled spacer and the rotate armature (Which I will show later) were all custom machined for this project. Next we add a nut over the top of the Beveled Spacer to hold it tight to the Rod End so we don't get sloppy movement.

Now it's time to add the Rotate Armature that I cut out of steel earlier in this post. Here's how it goes:

Now, another nut on top of the Rotate Armature to hold it tightly in place so it won't move:

Just to show you, this armature has a small hole which was tapped for a 2-56 screw which will hold the rotate servo linkage. That screw goes in here:

__________________ Living as if every day were Halloween! Now a look at the very top of the center rod. It has a small hole drilled in it which is also tapped for a 2-56 screw. This is the hole that you attach the tilt and nod servo linkages to. The two linkages sit on top of the rod, one on top of the other, and the screw goes through them both and into the rod:

You can see how the screw goes into the top here:

That's the whole thing for the center rod. Here's how it goes into the skull. Remember, we left out the rod end step since it was already attached to the skull.

Then, flip the skull over, and add the beveled spacer over the rod end like so:

Just follow all the steps laid out above, adding all the pieces in the same order with the skull and Rod End now in place.

As soon as I get all 4 skulls put together and tweaked, I will post another video with them all going. Here's what it looks like so far:

Just me and my friends hanging out. I am busy tweaking and adjusting VSA commands. HB, I'm building my skull with a threaded rod not tapered. Do you think it's necessary to use a spacer also on the underside of the rod end between the bolt holding it in place? I think I do need a spacer. When I tighten the bolt underneath the rod end I don't get as much range of motion as when I loosen it up a bit. I think that the beveled spaced will make the difference. Yes, that's the whole reason for the tapering. To give you more range of motion. Terrific How-to, there Bob...I wonder though...could you use two beveled spacers back to back instead of machining a bevel into the rod itself? Also, what is the outer diameter of the rod, both the large and the thinner end? Where do you get beveled spacers? I just got back from 2 hardware stores and looking at the McMaster-Carr Web and can't find any. And I thought McMasters had everything. Is this something that you had machined also? Or maybe called something different? I have some nylon spacers that if I can't find any might have to try shaving off to work. Thanks for your help! Yes, the central rod and beveled spacers were machined by my friend with the machine shop. There may be something like that out there, but I had them made.

I also need to note that I am having some trouble with alignment after modifying the skulld to mount the rod ends on. You have to be sure that the top of the central rod is centered between all the servos. All servo linkage bars need to be at 90 degree angles from each other and from the central rod, or they will all start working against each other. I find it will involve a bit of tweaking before I get right. I'm, sorry HB, you had already stated that the beveled spacer was custom machined. DUH!!! If I could learn to pay attention maybe I could finish this but I get way too excited when you do updates. Yes, I don't see why you couldn't use 2 beveled spacers with a nut on either side to hold them into place. Should have the same effect. Problem is, you still have to machine those beveled spacers. I haven't found anything like them for sale. The other reason I wanted the thicker main rod was for better support and more rigidity. With a long 3/16 rod, you might get some shaking and swaying when the skull moves. OK, I have made a fix. First, let me recap. Very early on in the thread on the first page, I mentioned that I needed to bend the shaft of the rod end that attaches to the skull in order to get the correct alignment within the skull with respect to all the servos. Then I realized that this had damaged the rod end, so I decided to modify the skull with a heatgun and mount the rod end on the modified skull......MORE problems. Each skull I modified came out at slightly different angles. Making this mod also ended up lowering the position of the rod end within the skull. All of this combined caused real problems when I hooked everything back up. The skull would not run off the same program as before because all the servo arms were out of alignment becuase of the rod end. So I thought and thought and then thought some more about how to mount the rod end so it would be aligned exactly the same in every skull. Just where I needed it so that the servo linkages all line up right. Everything needs to be 90 degrees from everything else in order for them to work, otherwise each servo will start affecting the other servos and they will fight each other. Then it came to me. I didn't need to mount the rod end in the skull at all! I could attach it to the lexan plate! The plate is screwed to the skull so it will move with the plate and the result will be the same. This solved a multitude of problems! It makes it easier to hook up the tiny screws to the

center rod that hold the linkages on, It keeps the rod end exactly where it's needed and can be precisely reproduced in every skull no matter how the angles may vary, and it makes mounting and removing the mechanism MUCH easier. In fact, it is now all one piece ready to drop into any skull. Here are pictures of what I did. I started with some raw steel. Actually, this was a part for a garage door, but it would have been just as easy to cut and bend a piece of a steel sheet. Here is what I started with. I have already drawn the outline of what I was going to cut out on it.

Then I put it in the vise and started cutting and drilling.

When I was done, I ended up with this:

The bottom is measured out to fit around a servo, and slips under the servo bracket for the "Nod" servo in the lexan plate. I removed the screws from that servo, slid the bracket under the servo mounts, and screwed the screws back in (actually, I used longer screws) to hold down both the new bracket, and the servo.

Here are some other angles:

You can see where I bolted the rod end into this bracket. The mounting hole for the rod end is 1 11/16" up from the feet of the bracket and is roughly centered. Be sure to adjust your mounting hole so that the center rod extends through the neck hole of the skull in the center and has enough clearence on all sides so that movement is not restricted. I had to re-adjust all the servo arms, and actually used different arms. These are two piece arms that you can slide in or out to change the alignment of the linkage. These also sit higher up on the servo giving me clearence to mount some of the linkages under the arm instead of over it. The servo arms came in the package with the servo. The servo box looks like this:

And the small package of servo arms that comes inside looks like this:

This package contains the adjustable servo arms that I am using. The tilt servo linkage should come in at 90 degrees from the nod servo linkage when the center rod is straight up and down. They should be mounted so that they are at the least possible angle, making them as parallel to the lexan plate as possible. Keep adjusting the servo arms so that all linkages are either parallel to each other or at 90 degrees to each

other. I hooked up the mechanism again and tested it with the program I originally made and it is working again now that my alignment has been corrected. HalloweenBob, thanks for the inspiration and tutorial. I just got my bucky up and running. It feels like Christmas morning. I need some input on why my servos are not responding when I run Brookshire VSA. They work fine when I run with the Parallax program but not the VSA. The controller is receiving the signal but no movement. Anybody had this problem. I've got a msg into tech support but I remember a thread about them being very slow in responding. Thanks Make sure your controller board is running at the right baud rate. I forget the actual setting, but it should be set for the fastest one. My SSC-32 board came with the baud rate set at 9600. It did nothing. After a call to tech help, they explained it to me. I changed the jumper on the board and everything came to life. yea I had the same problems with the baud rate on my board as well, just one click and the dang servos started working lol! Show us some picts! If you are doing a skull you already have a servo controller. You will save yourself a lot of time and effort if you stick with servos. Servo City has some very small ones in sub-micro catagory. check out http://www.servocity.com/html/hs-55_sub-micro.html or http://www.servocity.com/html/hs-45h...m_feather.html either one should be able to move the eyes without any problem. just a note: if any one needs a Beveled Washer, look here. this would work for the top and they are made of super hard rubber and should work great. I know they make a teflon one to an any size but Ill have to look for it. just a bit of info that might help some one out they also make Beveled metal grommets too will look for likes http://plumbing.hardwarestore.com/51...t-washers.aspx http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:...es.com/catalog http://sth2.com/Z-car/cone-washer.jpg google Cone Washer Is there such a thing as a reducer coupler for threaded rods? You could attach it that way to the bucky skelly. Very nice, Bob. No, nice isn't the right word...spectacular. Yes, that's it. VERY SPECTACULAR! One question..those skulls look far apart. Did you splice in longer wires for the servos? How do they all reach the servo controller board? Do you have a pic for the wiring?

Right now, I just have extensions on all the servos. I bought them at ServoCity.com. I will be cutting those up and extending them even more shortly. I will take pictures and document that process as I go along. I have made a box for the servo controller that has 4 big jacks on it. One for each skull. That way, setup will only be connecting four plugs instead of 20 tiny servo wire Dr M, I found a reducing coupler for my skull to a bucky body. I Found a 5/16" to 1/4", at McMaster-Carr, item #97088A190. I just made my extensions and it all works just fine. I started by getting a really nice plastic project box to mount the SSC-32 controller board in. I got the box (2 of them actually) for free from this website: http://www.pactecenclosures.com/New-...-Products.html In hopes that you will mass produce a product and use their boxes, they offer you 2 free samples. Good deal. Here is a pic of the box opened up after I mounted the SSC-32 board in it. I used 1/2" standoffs.

I cut 4 square holes in the top of the box at my friends machine shop, cut out a hole where the serial port is, and mounted a small terminal block on top. Here's what that looks like with all the hardware in:

By the way, I got the plugs and jacks for the extensions here: http://www.mouser.com/catalog/630/1117.pdf. They were pretty cheap. Under $4.00 each. here's what it looks like from underneith where I will be doing all the wiring:

Then I had to hook up the internal wiring. First, I connected the power for the board to the terminal block being careful to pay attention to polarity.

then I wired the power that will go to the servos. What I did, was send the power for the servos directly out to the servos using 2 pins on each of the extension jacks. This way, to hook up 5 servos, I only need 7 wires. Two power wires that get distributed to all the servos at the skull end, and a control wire for each servo. I started like this:

Then I ran wires in parallel to the last two connectors on all 4 jacks. I also started hooking up the control wires for the servos here. You can also see that I labeled what all the jacks were, where the + and - wires go, and the pin numbers on the underside so I don't get confused. (I did anyway, but I fixed it later)

Every servo has 3 wires going to it. A Black one (Which is Ground), A Red one (Which is your DC Voltage (Typically 5 or 6 VDC....I'm using 5VDC) and a yellow one (Which is the Pulse or Signal wire) Since the DC Voltage is constantly on for all the servos, I decided to run two wires out of each jack to supply voltage for all the servos in that skull. I connect all the ground wires and all the Positive wires to these two at the other end, so all the servos have power. then All I have to worry about is the control wires (Pulse Wires) I discovered, that even though I was sending the voltage directly to the servos, and was not using the voltage wires off the SSC-32 board, I still had to feed the DC voltage for the servos into the board in order for it to work. I just tapped off the terminal block wires and sent that to the board, again being careful to get the polarity right. You can see that here:

Anyway, to hook up the outputs from the board to my jacks, I did the easy thing. I bought a bunch of 3 foot servo extensions and cut them in half. For some reason, the colors are different on the servo extentions. They are Brown, Red and Orange. Red is the same. It is the positive voltage wire. Brown is the ground and the orange wire is the pulse wire. I took the end of the extension that plugs into the board and cut off the brown and red wires, leaving just the Pulse wire (The one closest to the center of the SSC-32 board) connected. Then I soldered the control wires to each of the appropriate connectos on the jacks that I mounted, making a chart of where every wire is hooked up and what it does. I labled my four jacks L (for Lead Vocal) 1,2 and 3 for my three backup singers. The "L" jack has 5 control wires. one for the Jaw, three for the 3 axis motion and one more for the eyelid action. Jacks 1 and 3 each have just 4 control wires. The Jaw and the 3 for the 3 axis movement, and number 2 has 2 additional wires. One is an extra jaw wire, because the guy in the center will be lifting up a skull that he holds in his hand, and the jaw on that skull will move. The other extra is for a high torque servo I have hooked up to a pulley system that will raise his arms so he can hold up the skull. I'll post pictures of that when I get to it. Anyway, here's what I mean by separating the pulse wire and only hooking that up. Heres a pic just before I cut off the Brown and Red Wires:

Here's what it looks like all wired up:

And here's the finished product all closed up and ready to hook up:

Then I made the extensions themselves. This was pretty simple. I used servo extension wire that I bought at ServoCity.com. (2 50ft lengths)

I'm sure you could use cat5 cable, but I had already bought this stuff, so I decided to use it. My only concern with Cat5 cable would be that you double up on the DC voltage wires. In some cases, those two wires need to carry the current for 6 servos all at once.

Cat5 cable strikes me as a bit thin for that. Fine for the Pulse wires, however. Since I had the wire, I doubled up the voltage wires on these extensions even with the thicker wire. I figured it can't hurt, and it might help. Here is the plug end:

At the other end, I reconnected the remaining end of the short servo extensions I bought from ServoCity.com. I had used the other ends on the SSC-32 board earlier. I connected all the brown wires together and soldered them to the ground wire that I ran out. I attached all the Red wires together and soldered them to the Positive DC voltage wire that I ran out. Then I connected the pulse wires to the right mini servo sockets and numbered them all for eaiser reference. Here's the other end:

I just taped up the area where I made all the splices, and taped up other spots every foot or so just to keep the wires all together and easier to handle. That was it! Just hooked it back up and everything worked fine. Each extension is about 12 feet long. They would have been longer if I had more wire, but 12 feet will be fine for what I'm doing. That means that one skull can be 20 feet away from the others if I want to set it up that way. This will be long enough for me to run the cables down the back of each character where it won't be seen, and then connect them all to the controller board. Now to hook up the whole 20 servos, I just need to plug in one plug for each skull and I'm done! So yesterday I finally broke down and decided to build a 3 axis skull. I had a partial sheeet of 1/4" lexan and a miniSSC laying around so I shot over to my local hobby shop and luckily they had some large ball links for the gimbal. I'm using 1/4" x 6" carriage bolt with a hand drilled and tapped 4-40 hole in the end (my local hobby shop rocks and they are going to drill and tap a couple bolts on the lathe this week for me so I can replace the hand done ones). For the spacers I'm using 9/32 brass tubing over the threads and it works well, I think it may even give me more motion than the conical spacers do. I made the supporting bracket out of 1/8" aluminum stock and it seems to be beefy enough. I'm so close to being done it hurts. The only real problem I have now is that the ball link uses something like a 1/4"-28 thread and I don't have a nut for it and I need to put a little more thought into the servo links. So my questions to you HalloweenBob; 1) Do you have any pictures of the new metal mounting bracket installed in a skull that wasn't modified with the heat gun? I'm hesitant to dremel out more material than I have to from the base of the skull. I'd like to see how your gimbal is seated in the opening. I actually have to re-do my metal bracket since I somehow cut it offset. I started actually assembling at 11pm and by the time I got to this bracket it was 3am, and I had to cut everything with a 4" hacksaw or a dremel (I would have woken everyone up if I went to dig out the jigsaw) 2) Do the servos chatter alot at rest since they are in tension supporting much of the weight (using the neck location as the mounting spot rather than the point the kit stand uses )?

3) Did you have to take a lot of material out of the inside of the skull to make room for the servo links? I haven't started canibalizing the inside since I need to redo the bracket and find a couple 1/4-28 nuts. Would there be room to use ball cups and studs on the end of the servo arm as linkages (they provide great range of motion compared to the ball links). Hopefully tonight I'll try putting it together using the ball links on both ends of the servo connecting rods. Provided I get one working right I'm going for the duet (I got you babe!) thing. Some other ideas were to add shrugging shoulders to it, it's easier to raise the shoulders than to raise the hold skull assembly without adding lots of slop. To answer your questions.... 1. I did have to cut away some of the skull where I had modified it with the heat gun. basically, I just had to make the opening larger so that the center rod had enough clearance all the way around. This is because by attaching the rod end to the bracket, it is a little higher up inside the skull, making the rod need more room to move at the skull's base. To make the hole larger, just use a dremel tool or just about anything, really. I used a hacksaw blade that I just held in my hand. The skull plastic cuts very easily. 2. No, my servos don't chatter at all. I set them up so they are all in the center position when the skull is looking straight forward and all servo arms are at 90 degrees. I have no trouble with chattering or with the servos fighting each other. I did have that problem before when they were not properly aligned. 3. I did not have to cut anything out of the skull with the exception of making the neck hole larger. All the parts were designed to fit in the skull as is without any modifications to the skull. (Again other than the bottom opening) I use the following ball linkages from ServoCity.com: http://www.servocity.com/html/2-56x3_16__mini.html they take a 2-56 screw, so that is the size I tapped into the top of my threaded rod. They are small so they don't bump into anything else inside the skull. Perhaps you are running into trouble because you have chosen larger parts, and they take up too much space. Without pictures, it's hard for me to tell. I hope that is helpful. To the good doctor...Please post some pics of your finished extension box, and let me know if you find any improvements!

I already enlarged the hole a bit using the dremel and a sanding barrel, I guess I need to get everything together and see the clearances first. I just don't want to take too much away. It actually seems like the little bit I did before pitting everything together (basically just rounded the hole a little bit) is giving me some decent clearance). As far as chatter, I haven't even turned on the servos yet, I just know that unless you're using heavy duty servos that when there is a static load on them, even if they are centered, sometimes they tend to chatter as they try to stay at a specific position (usually a sign of a servo getting old, but this thing isn't exactly featherweight) As far as clearances for the linkages, I think I'm ok, I have enough clearance that I can mount one between the servo and the arm and then the other on the outside of the arm (like normal) so that I won't have as much stagger (keeping the linkages as close to perpendicular to the rod as possible) I'm using 4-40 ball ends which are pretty tiny to begin with, I'll know a little later if I'm in trouble or not. As far as the alignments to the main supporting rod, I used your template as a guide, but as I'm looking at it, I think I need to flip the nod servo around and it'll line up better (I don't know if it's even a problem yet). Here are some pictures I took to show the 9/32 tubing as spacers. Don't laugh at the condition of my cuts, it was late and I really thought I was going to have to build this thing twice so I just basically hacked away at parts of it. The lexan looks particularly crappy, but it'll be concealed. lso note that I don't have nuts for the ball link acting as the gimbal, so it's slopping all over the place. By eye it actually looks like it's lined up fairly ok.

The hole in the mounting bracket is for the nod servo linkage from the back of the skull (did I do something different from your design?) and you are correct it's definitely not big enough for the linkage to smoothly move through, I ran out of sanding bands for my small barrel last night and just decided to test fit everything. At that point I was mostly concerned about the spacing form the gimbal to the point where the nod and tilt linkages attach. Speaking of which... I know your machined rod is 2" from the top of the bevel to the top of the rod (before the screw in the top), would you increase the distance from the gimbal to the linkages or decrease it if you could do it over again? Basically I figure I want to keep it as long as possible for the sake of smoothness (want to use as much servo travel as possible), but at the same time I want to make sure it's short enough that the swing of the servo arm will be enough give me full range of motion. I do think I need to swap the nod servo orientation, it doesn't come off perpendicular to

the support rod the way the tilt servo does, I have to go back downstairs and look at it again to see if that's the problem. If rotating the servo doesn't make it line up beter I'm going to just connect it and see if it works. I need to get a couple flat nuts to secure the pan arm, those standard hex nuts are too thick and waste too much space.

Once you add the rotate armature onto the central shaft, it will stick out towards the bracket you made. It needs a big clearance area because of the way it moves around when you use the nod servo at the same time as the rotate servo. If you don't enlarge that hole, you will find several areas where the rotate armature hits the bracket while the skull is in different positions. It will become obvious once you add the armature. I am glad so many people are following this thread and getting this project done! It is very gratifying to see others come out with successful projects based on my input here. If there are more people out there building these, please post and let us know. You can see that as this group gets together, they find easier ways to get this done that does not require as much custom machining as I had in my original design. The more who post here, the better refined the design becomes. It wasn't actually the 4-40 screw that I was concerned about as far as size goes. If you use a 4-40 screw, then you will need a larger size linkage arm. Put two or three of those larger linkage arms in that tight space and they might start hitting each other limiting your motion. I'm guessing here because I know space was tight in mine and I used smaller parts. Please let us know how you make out with that. It would be great if space is not an issue at that size. Those screws, drills and taps are all easier to work with than the 2-56 size, so it may simplify the process. I agree with you that the ball links themselves could pose a problem. Worst case scenario, since the loads on them are going to be relatively light, I can shave some of the nylon off to make them a little more cooperative. I already called my LHS and told them not to tap the two other bolts just in case I have to go down to a #2 screw. I'm more concerned about the fact that my nod servo doesn't line up perpendicular to the other servos. I have a couple options for fixing it if rotating the servo doesn't bring it closer into line. In all reality the build time for these things is relatively short once you start to see how the pieces fit together, I'd say to start from scratch again build time would probably be under 4-5 hours knowing what I know now.

Wish me luck, I'm going to try and steal an hour before dinner and get this thing together. Ok, so I flipped the nod servo around and the links are pretty perpendicular now. I created a new support bracket, and created a cam to mount on the rod for the pan function. Put everything together and fired it up. The good news is - the 4-40 ball links seem to be fine, the bad news is that something is not right with the pan linkage. Tilting the head causes it to turn when the pan linkage is attached. It was pretty late when I got to this point last night so I wasn't thinking super clearly, but I think this may be unavoidable and that the only way to correct it is to do some servo mixing. I'm only a member of the 2 axis club at this point =/. It's all in the alignment. If everything including the rotate servo linkage are lined up right and on the correct plain, no servo mixing is necessary. I do not have to do any mixing with any of the 4 I made. The answer will be in the pictures. I couldn't leave for work today without looking at this some more. I have some clearance issues that I need to work out. The rotation when nodding is caused by the nod linkage hitting the screw connecting the cam to the rotate linkage. This should be fairly easy to fix. I had to remove the right side of the bracket so that the arm on rotate servo could travel freely while noddind and tilting. I actually have to remove a little more of the bracket (the rotate cam still hits the bracket at the extreme nod down position), I'm just glad I created the new bracket with a hole in the middle rather than cutting out the entire middle the way you did it. The bigger problem with unintentional rotation is with the tilt servo, I think the rotation cam has to be closer to the point where the tilt and nod ball ends connect to the rod. Tonight I'll try moving the rotate cam up on the rod and mounting the rotate linkage from underneath but something tells me there is always going to be a little bit of rotation at the extreme ends of tilt. I also need to put some more thought into the length of the servo arms and the distance between the gimbal and the point where all the linkages attach to the top of the rod. If I rotate the skull too far to the right (skulls left) I end up passing the point of no return and when I try to go back the skull keeps rotating left, this is because I shortened the cam prior to cutting the bracket for clearance. I also need to work on my nod up, I don't get much travel that direction, I think I just have to put some thought and possibly some math into the distances.

Here are some pictures: Top - centered

Top - nod up

Top - rotate left

Top - rotate right

Front - centered

Front - nod down

Front - tilt right

Front - rotate and nod interference

Do you recommend the LynxMotion SSC32? I seem to be having a few problems with my MiniSSC II, I am using the VSA demo and I can't control anything other than the first two channels (I have to keep swapping the servos out to test different motions). I also noticed that occaisionally it stops responding to commands until I restart the program and it's not very smooth, setting the jumper for 90 degree range of motion helps but it's still not very smooth. I'm going to try running the MiniSSC test program but I think I'll just spring for the $40 for a LynxMotion, I figure the higher baud rate may be beneficial once I add a additional skulls to my setup. I'm looking to do a duet kind of thing and for backup singers I'm going to do a simple jaw movement with head tilt and possibly a lift for the entire head to go up and down. I can see by your very first picture that you need to pull your rotate linkage in closer to the center of the servo at the servo end. It is no where near 90 degrees and does need to be as close to that as possible. It looks like you will get some fighting between servos until that is resolved. The others seem to be lined up fairly well. Keep playing with alignment until everything is as perpendicular to everything else as

possible. It will start working right once you have achieved that. You can adjust which hole on the servo armature you mount to, wether you mount the linkage on top or under that servo arm. Which servo arm you choose, and the length of the linkages. Plenty of things to play with to get the alignment right. I do recommend the lynxmotion board. I have had no trouble with it at all. It is a great bargain at that price since it can control 32 servos instead of the standard 8 and their customer service is excellent. I had trouble setting it up because I was confused with setting the baud rate. They talked me through it no problem and were easy to get on the phone. where are you guys finding the #4 gimble ends for the servos? I bought the ones that were linked to from this thread and theyre 2-56 ends. lol what am I going to do with 20 of these then? Check that site again, g to the home page and check the mechanical area. Several sizes/types But even though 4-40 is a more common size I do believe the 2-56 ones will leave more room to play/adjust. The #4 linkages are avilable on the same website. Here is the link to them: http://www.servocity.com/html/4-40x3_16__standard.html I still recommend using the smaller size and tapping your holes for the #2 screws. The servo arms are also really made for the smaller size screw. To get a 4-40 screw into the servo arm, you really have to drill out most of the arm, and I don't think you can mount the #4 linkage on the underside of the servo arms. To line everything up, I did mount several linkage arms on the underside so that it attaches to the servo arm and sits between it and the servo itself. I am watching to see how it goes with the 4-40 screws, but again, I used all 2-56 screws for all the servo linkages. The dubro 4-40 ball links do fit under the servo arm on a futaba 3004 servo (hitec 425bb equiv). If you are ordering the parts and are reasonably confident as to being able to machine the end of the rod and tap such a small screw I would say go with the 2-52 ones just to be safe. Looking at Hb's setup they seem to be plenty sturdy and the extra clearance definately would not hurt. At this point I do not think the 4-40 ball links are going to be a problem but I'll know after tonight. I'm off to my local hobby shop to get some other eyeballs on my setup. got em machined to 2-56 and they turned out great thanks to BB's reccomendation. Now i just have to make the gimble support and I will be up and running soon!

I see something that might help after viewing your videos. Try attaching the linkages to a hole closer to the center on the servo arm. The further out to the outside you go, the more turning takes place in addition to the straight out "pushing" you want to tilt or nod. By moving the linkage closer to the center, you get less of an arc motion. You may find that the linkages become a bit more lined up (90 degrees) as well, although yours are pretty good. I would also try adjusting the height on your center rod of the rotate armature (move it up a bit if you have clearence). I see this has been discussed a bit already, but it shouldn't interfere with other motion. I know mine does not. Lowering the rotate servo is a viable option, but shouldn't be necessary. It is also important that all linkage arms be as close to parallel to the plexi plate as possible. Mine are still at a bit of an angle, but not as much as what I see on yours. That may be causing some trouble. All in all it does seem to be working pretty well. I should have shot video of that phase of my setup. Those videos are very helpful. I just noticed something else from your video. I don't know how much difference this will make, but my "Tilt" servo faces the other way from how you have yours mounted. Both the tilt and rotate servo are mounted facing the same direction with the servo arm pointing towards the back of the skull. The square hole in the plexi was put where it was with that placement in mind. It may help to also turn that servo (the tilt servo) around. I said I would post again as soon as I got these guys all dressed up. Well, I have started the body-making. The girl lead singer is a full bucky in a dress. She will also be wearing a wig. I made a wooden stand that holds her up from the bolt that extends down in her pelvis. It is actually one long solid rod that goes the entire distance of the spine and holds everything together. I cut off the tailbone, and rested the end of that rod in a hole I made in the frame, and then bolted it down tight with oversized washers and nuts. Here she is standing there:

Here is the frame I made to hold her up:

To attach the skull that I made, I cut off the bolt at the top. Slid a coupler over it, and tapped a couple holes in it to hold it tight. Now all I have to do is screw her head on right.

I left some of the vertibrae attached in front to hide the metal couplings. For the guys, it was a different story. I had to make an entire body frame for each one. They will be fully dressed in a complete tuxedo. (I bought 3 of them) so nothing will show except for their heads and hands. Here's how I started:

here's what it looked like from the back:

Then I started padding it out a bit. First I added shoulder pads:

You can also see where I added Chicken wire to build out the chest. Next, I added padding to the Chest:

A couple of arms (Made from pool noodles, held together with those nylon tie-wraps. I'm not sure of the real name for them)

Then the hands....

Almost done now. I just had to get them dressed. I put the tuxes on them the same way I would put them on a real person except that I used a staple gun to hold things in place.

There he is! So far, I have made 2 out of the 3 Background Singer bodies. I am purposely making them different heights because all people are not the same height. I wanted a little variety and it adds to each one's personality. Here's the group so far with one background singer missing. (They will be displayed outdoors)

More as I get things finished up. This is one of the places you can get the skull: http://www.monstersinmotion.com/cata...ducts_id/10457 It is a plastic model from Lindberg. If you look back through this thread, it is referenced with links a couple of different times. My last body is built, and I am almost ready to attach the heads. Perhaps this weekend. When I do, I will post more pictures and more video. have been following this conversation in awe but, apart from wondering if Bob's neighbor is interested in adopting me, didn't really have anything to add. Last night, while working on a shopping list for my current project, getting my grandfather's metal lathe back into good working order, I saw that Enco (http://www.use-enco.com) had ball joints and thought, "Hey, since I'm thinking about doing one of those

skeleton's some day, I ought to throw one or two of those onto my order." This morning while putting my list together (and thinking about how much money I really want to drop today) I noticed Enco's price is about half of McMaster Carr's. Not sure how shipping will stack up, but though I'd share that little bit of information. Now that I have my heads screwed on straight, I can take care of other details. Here's how the group is shaping up so far...

I still have to finish progamming routines, make something for their necks that look like vertibrae, and hide the metal, attach the top hats to the guys, finish painting their stands with black spray paint, build and program all the lights and lighting sequences, build the tombstones that will be in front of these guys, give them mic stands and mics, and a few other details. I'll post video once I get the whole system together out in the barn where the bodies are. Then I have to get to work on the rest of my haunt. This quartet was only an addition to all the rest of the stuff that I do. Well, it's back to work for me! Thanks for keeping track of this project.

Brookshire software's VSA http://www.brookshiresoftware.com/ Hi All, I was searching for spacers and came across these. https://fairwayfasteners.com/display.asp?id=566&sra=5 I haven't had a lot of time to work more on this project lately. Stupid things like work have been keeping me busy! I have been having trouble with the pulley mechanism that will enable one of my undead to lift a skull he is holding in the air while that skull sings or delivers his lines. I have a high torque servo mounted in a servo power gearbox from servocity.com. I attached a large (6") pulley wheel on the large gear of the gearbox, but the ratio was off and it was too slow. I think I will also have to incorporate a counterweight to help with the lifting. At any rate, I just ordered a different gearset and installed it that will give me a one to one ratio. That will speed tings up a little. I hope to test it later today or at least this weekend. You may ask, if it's a one to one ratio, why use the gearbox? Good question. I need the gear to spin around more that 360 degrees. This requires a special multi-turn potentiometer which has to be mounted outside the servo in the gearbox. I have the pulley mounted on the gear that is attached to the potentiometer because it has mounting hardware on it. The servo gear does not. If I have lost some of you, don't worry, I will post more pictures. For now, here's a picture of the servo power gearbox:

you can see more pictures and specs here: http://www.servocity.com/html/spg645_power_servo.html I am using the Hitec HS-645MG servo as pictured. Instead of the long arm attached in the picture above, mine has a pulley wheel attached to that gear. The other difference is the ratio. The picture shown is a 5 to one ratio. Mine now has two gears of equal size. Can you use CAT5e or similar between the SSC-32 and the servos ? Yes, you can. However, I would double up on the power wires if you are running a long distance or if you are running 5 or 6 servos from one cable. cat5 wire is very thin and may not transfer enough power (amperage, not voltage) to effectively run many servos. No close-up pics, but I can describe it pretty well. I used small wooden balls I found at Michaels. They had holes drilled through them for a dowel. I drilled a small hole through the bridge of the nose and put a dowel through that hole. I mounted (and glued) one of those wooden balls (After painting them) on each end of the dowel so that they were centered in the eye socket. I had cut a slot in one of the eye sockets of the skull. You can see it here:

That slot lines up with a small servo mounted under the lexan plate inside the skull:

You can see the servo mounted UNDER the Jaw servo. You can also see the slot that is cut for the eye movement from the inside of the skull from this angle. This next picture is of the lexan plate turned upside down, so you can see the small servo used to control the eye motion. You can see a small metal linkage attached to the servo armature in this picture. When mounted in the skull, that linkage sticks through the slot in the eye socket.

Finally, you can see here, how I attached the eye to the servo linkage. I used a small metal hook with threads on one end. I threaded it into the eyeball and curled the other end into an eyelet. Then I connected that piece to the linkage. Once the eyeball was attached to the dowel that ran through the hole in the nose bridge, it restricted the movement to up and down only. Since the other eye was attached to the same dowel, they moved together.

To complete the effect, I added fake eyelashes so when she blinked, it showed up better. Unfortunately, I had to sell these guys, so I no longer have them to take more pictures. I have to use pictures that I took while building them. "- Testing has been completed with using the 425 servo's and the servo's took a beating. In fact, one servo sustained some serious gear damage and another hour of testing it would have failed completely. We're moving the bucky to the 625MG servos. This morning, we assembled two and they are currently running. We plan to run them until they fail. Some good news, the 425 will work for the Lindberg." Engineering Notes: 12/30/07 SKULL 3 and 6 REV X4. We ran three complete assembled bucky's, using the 425 servos, for about 32 hours. This test was very aggressive with tilt and rotate movements. The average haunter would never encounter such movements. After about the 15th hour, we notice delays and some noise. We brought them down and checked the servos. They seemed okay and we continued testing. At 32 hours, we notice a big delay on one of the buckys. We took it apart and did an autopsy on the servos. See notes above. We are currently running Bucky's with the HS-625MG and they seemed to be doing very well and we have notice a big difference with movement and such. We have successfully tested the Lindberg skull for 60 hours (using the 425) and did an autopsy on the servos - perfect. To answer your original question - yes, you can build a bucky using 425 servos. We designed the plate, servos, and angle bracket to be dead center with the bucky skull. For the normal haunter, our system will work with no problems. The secret is keeping the skull center and true to center movements. This took us about 10 trials and errors to discover. Once found, it made a big difference and I mean a big difference. I will post a picture of the angle plate that we’re using. Those 3 holes are critical for centering the skull. How this works is once the Bucky is assemblied, run it and if you notice drag, move the complete assembly either up or down on the three holes. In most cases, it fixes the problems. Keep in mind, we do validate the bucky weight prior to assembly. Of 30 checked, 2 were outside our weight limit... this is one of the main reasones were not going any further with this 425 setup configuration.

Regrettably, we won’t publish pictures of the finished product. We added one little feature that acts like a counterweight – is it needed – no, but its making a big improvement. So far, were up to 64 hours and at 50 hours we encounter our first noise. This is using the 425 and a bucky skull. Testing is done via 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off. I will see about getting some video uploaded. The plates we supplied will work as long as they are true to the skull, that is they are right at the top of the skull lower half top, and the rod area is cut away so it can move freely. Is it the best setup, no. But we did build one bucky out of these and had encounter very few problems - problems that can easily be overcome by making some bracket adjustments. To ensure there are no problems, we recommend the users of this plate go to 625MG. Yeah, they are expensive. To make it even better, I will ship out brackets to those that got

plates in a few weeks (we're modifying the axis rod). I rather them use are plates then them trying to fabricate something and coming back here saying its does not work. Ugg... I better include the rod assembly too... okay, for those of you that recevied our plates - I will mail out brackets and rods too. Please post feedback here of how it worked for you.