hey robot fans welcome back to the build as you can see I am very digitally
dressed up today that is because if the Facebook chatter is any indication this
will most likely be my most viewed video of this series today we are going to
build and install the infamous the elusive macro binoculars so let me
change into some more appropriate work clothes and we'll get started right away
so this whole process started when I first got my helmet I made some paper
cutouts to get a general size of the binoculars and from there I stepped it
up to some 3d printed silhouettes started measuring and making some
additions and subtractions over a couple of rounds just the rounds just got more
and more complex with the 3d silhouette and finally that whole method was kind
of tapped out and I knew I was gonna have to make a 3d model so without
having to model the whole helmet autodesk makes a great program called
remake and remake will take a group of pictures and turn them into a 3d model
the trick with that is that you really need to have even lighting and the more
tracking points you can have on the helmet the better so the first time I
did it I was really lacking in these two areas I didn't have even lighting
because the helmet is one color without a lot of shadows on it and two my shadow
from when I was taking the picture was showing up in different spots in each
picture as I moved around the helmet so my first solve here was really terrible
luckily I had these little marker stickers from a previous project that I
was able to put all over the helmet and to help out the even lighting I took the
pictures outside during dusk and not in the direct sunlight or direct shadow and
that really helped so my second solve was a lot better it was still a little
wonky but I was able to use this to size out some issues with the binoculars I
also built out a cleaner version of the main parts that I needed to work with
like the ears and the Mohawk and from there I was able to really start
building a complexity with my little testers and that went through a few more
rounds and so finally I had something that's starting to really resemble the
binoculars and after a few rounds there I was able to add on all the Greve
leaves and everything and do one complete full binocular print out which
turned out really well so yeah these printed out really well I
have all of the three please attach to it that need to go on there I have the
front piece you can see through them like that you're gonna be able to pick
that up on camera but you could see through them if you're looking through
the helmet which is good so I think as far as the outside of these binoculars
goes this is this is really where we need to be I'm gonna probably put a
little pause here because now it's time to shift to the other half of these
binoculars which is getting them installed on the helmet and to do that
the first thing I'm gonna do is cut a ridge in the ear here which is where
these things are going to rotate and in addition to that I think I'm also going
to do the old Vincent van Gogh here and just hack off the top of this ear the
goal being that eventually I'm going to put some mounting hardware in through
the hole and just 3d print this little ear greatly that goes on top here so
yeah this is gonna be a pretty dangerous cut I'm scared to do it but yeah this
ridge going across the top here and cutting off the end of this ear I think
it's a necessary evil and that's that's what's next on the chopping block I know
I said I was going to cut those ridges out first but something about sawing
through these two ears was just a little too irresistible so I grabbed a
jeweler's saw and it worked like butter cut right through the two end caps next
up I marked out where I wanted the ridges to go along the top of the ear
and I intended on just using the same jeweler saw to score out the lines but
it worked so well I just kept cutting and the line came out perfectly straight
and smooth I took it outside did some final sanding and I think we're all set
here I enlarged the holes on the side of the ears and this will eventually be
access to the inside of the helmet for all the mounting hardware needed to
attach the binoculars lastly I added some bondo to each of the sides just to
smooth out some of those cuts then I Reap rhymed it with some gray so that we
don't have to look at that ugly dark brown anymore and now I think we can put
the helmet down for a little bit and focus on the inside mounting structure
so let's take a look in 3d studio max okay here we have a 3d model of the
earhole I'm gonna show you the 3d printed piece that I made it's basically
just a cap it has a little bit of a brim that'll attach to that cutout rim and
the inside is a cylinder with a smaller cylinder that'll push up against the
bearing which we will see in a few minutes there is a hole straight through
and a few recesses here so the first recess is for an embedded nut this nut
has a little bit of a gripper that'll dig into the plastic and this will go
right into that recess there this obviously accepts a screw this is going
to be an m5 screw this will push into here it actually goes a bit further than
the edge of this piece and sits inside between the embedded nut and the plastic
this will hold this really secure and give us about 10 millimetres to work
with on the inside on those 10 millimeters we're going to put a bearing
this bearing is what's ultimately going to give us our rotation for the
binoculars on each side and to do that I built a little bit of an extension to
the binocular arms which looks like this so it has a rim and if we look at the
inside part of this arm you can see I have a recess built in for that bearing
and if we push it back I have two holes here for set screws and
I don't think they're gonna be necessary I think you could probably just push fit
this right onto that bearing and it'll be held secured with a nut that's gonna
go on the end here if not the set screws will definitely hold it into place on
the other side we have two more recesses to talk about and those are for magnets
you can see I have them denoted here by their polarity we have the south and
north poles here I purposely mixed up the poles so that the cap that's gonna
go on top can only fit one way this way you can put the cap on do your painting
you're weathering and you don't have to worry about putting it back on
right-side up that cap looks like that cap looks like this should look pretty
familiar it's the old ear cap and if we look at the back of that we have the
opposite magnets and a recess for that screw cap so this will attach to here
and you're all set so let's get all of this printed out and see what it looks
like okay I'll print it out with the magnets
installed I also printed out the cap and have the magnets installed in there and
the way that that's gonna work is just go like that and that's pretty much on
there it's a pretty tight fit to get it off while you need to do is turn it like
a key and it pops right off if I try to put it on the other way it repels and it
won't let me put it on but then if I just flip it it goes right on so I think
this is gonna work great now we can get both of these have the other one right
here we can get both of these installed into the ear and test out the ear
mechanism gluing this thing on is a bit of a breeze just a little bit of glue on
the outer rim push that into the hole and make sure that the magnets are
perfectly parallel with the ground plane do this on both sides and let that sit
for a bit after that set go to the inside of the helmet and put a ring of
glue around where the plastic meets the resin and then that should be a pretty
tight bond that's not going anywhere I printed out all of the updated 3d
parts and from then on it was just assembly I did a lot of gluing sanding
gap-filling painting priming more sanding more gap filling more priming
more painting the usual routine when all is said and done we have a finalized set
of binoculars and all that's left to do now is to do the final install with the
finished set of binoculars all the hardware all the Grebe's all the magnets
and just make sure everything works it's also worth mentioning that the mounting
system has changed a little bit since I started filming this video this recess
in the side of the arm was built for this bearing which is an m5 bearing with
a 19 millimeter radius that fit in there pretty nicely but the profile of it was
too big how far it's stuck off the side of the arm I couldn't get it to fit
through the slot of the helmet so I've switched it out for this this is also an
m5 bearing but this only has an 8 millimeter radius so this is quite a bit
better it's also a lot thinner it's said of being 5 millimeters thick
it is only two and a half millimeters thick and to install this I've put it
inside of this little bearing holder and this bearing holder slips right into the
old recess like that it's a pretty nice fit and it's also removable which is
good you don't have to glue this in you could trim it to fit the way you want to
and it's better than trying to squeeze the bearing in there anyway so this
works out pretty perfectly so then next up is just the final install of the
binoculars the two stems slip right into the sides of the helmet here then it's
just a matter of lining up the m5 screw with the bearing recess on the inside
with the hardware installed we can add our great leaves onto the sides and the
binoculars are all installed alright there you have it we have a fully
installed pair of binoculars and the best part is I can see through them I
installed a welder shield in the front piece just like the one that's gonna be
used for the visor so now I will not be that clone commander walking into walls
I can see what's in front of me not really what's to decide of me but
hey you take what you can get that's going to do it for this video if you
need a pair of binoculars for your build let me know I have a few available next
time we are going to do the final preparations on the helmet to get it
ready for paint and as always we are going to end with a progress montage see
you next time
you