Help! Need how to's for Moveable Joints

[Rafael]

Yea. I'm in the mood of building some poseable mechs (legged or wheeled) and there are a plethora of ideas floating around, like Appleseed Landmastes and GITS Tachikomas, Fuchikomas and whateverelse-komas. I've seen polycaps and other stuff ready-made, but for the mo I'm unable to buy via Internet. So if Anyone knows about tutorials, examples, etc on scratchbuilding Joints (not those), please point me in the right direction.

Rafa

[frank2056]

Hi Rafa,
I don't know if this is what you had in mind, but here's a cross-section of a joint that you can make with a ball and some plastic tubing. Here's the cross section:



The light yellow parts can be a tygon tube or any other rubber tube. The ball can be plastic or metal - just slightly larger in diameter than the inside diameter of the tube. When you push the ball into the tube, it'll be held in place but will still be free to rotate.

If you drill a hole in the ball, you can attach a rod to connect... whatever.

You could also replace the tubing with two brass (or even stiff plastic)tabs pushing against the ball (and holding it down in place). I think the tubing would be the easiest, though, since it replicates the typical polycap joint.

Frank

[Rafael]

Thanks, Frank. That's what I was thinking today. I went shopping for some plastic tubing and bought some plastic beads. Next, I'll be trying the rest of the process you described.

Rafa

[Weaver]

Not well up on Mechs, but just a general thought: you could make a very easy joint by putting a ribbed rubber/plastic sleeve (like electrical sleeving, for instance) over a piece of thick fuse wire. Make the wire longer than the sleeve and glue it in place at each end.

[ChernayaAkula]

I don't know how well the stuff reacts to glues and cutting, but have a look around for some LEGO Hero Factory figures. CLICK!
They've got some pretty cool ball joints with hip, knee and ankle, shoulder, elbow and wrist joints. The animations on the site show how movable they are. Also check the instructions on the website, showing the parts in detail.