LEVi Rover Raspberry Pi Modular Robot , OPEN Hardware, 3D Print Edition

Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago

Facbook Group dedicated to prints, mods and builds https://www.facebook.com/groups/810303052767348/
Update 1.23.2020 - All parts have been uploaded split for smaller beds like a Replicator 2 or a Ender 3 for example. You will want to open the parts in 3d Builder and delete every piece of the split except the one your about to print and save that part. I recommend numbering them. I did not individually do this because of the shear amount of pieces would mean a lot of files to keep up with.
Myself-
Hello everyone, let me introduce myself. I am Josh Starnes, an Application Development student at Western Governors University. I have taken some time to develop this first edition of the LEVi Rover Robot platform. The original purpose was to have a multi-use platform that can perform many tasks by adding on accessories to expand capability. The first accessory that I started test was for mowing the lawn. An extremely satisfying experience when you see the fruits of hard word, doing your hard work maintaining your beautiful turf. :)
The options do not stop here, the purpose of this project is to put a vanilla unmodified platform out in the wild so that accessories can be cultivated for that intended task. It could be a floor scrubber, a pressure washer, or even a leaf vacuum. Levi could play giant sized robot soccer and SUMO match against another LEVi! The options are endless and I would love to see this platform make a way into the educational classroom.
I will continue to update this project. Eventually I would like to make molds that I can use to pop out copies of the robot in resin, until then if you need one printed then this is possible. It is not cheap because it requires a lot of filament, but it could save thousands over buying even the most basic educational platforms of this size.
I do ask that everyone who downloads and prints this project keep the name LEVi Rover and also provides credit to me the creator. This helps me keep track as google indexes photos and project posts on the internet. This is ultimately a project for school.
ABOUT THE MODEL
Tires- The tires are meant to me printed in plastic and then a mold made with silicon. Liquid rubber can be mixed with pigment or powdered carbon to give it a tough but flexible texture. You can however combine and print the tire and wheel together as one piece if you wanted a simpler approach.
Tracks- The tracks CANNOT be printed and used in plastic, they are too rigid. You could print them in ninja flex, but I prefer to make a cast from a mold just like discussed with the Tires. I have a file loaded with the track stretched out into a big round circle. Unless your printer is very large you will want to slice this up into 4 pieces and reorient on your printers bed. When it is printed, you will need to glue together all the pieces and fill the cracks if there are any. Then cast the large track ring in rubber. I would make a mold box that gets within a inch of the track model so that you are not wasting a gallon of expensive rubber filling the large void in the center of the mold. You may need to underside the scaled maybe 1-5 percent in order to get some tension on the wheels. Try printing in the normal shape first to check sizing.
Headlights and Tail Lights- These are basically a place holder. You can print them and put some LEDs in them for good lighting, you could leave the covers off and fill the area with epoxy to encapsulate any LEDS you put in there too.
Head/ face- The face is colored black , but the long run purpose is to print the face and then use vacuum molding to make a copy in acrylic or Plexiglas. Then you can tint that plastic with grey or black clothing dye and warm water.
The Raspberry pi and other electronics are supposed to be printed on DIN mount cards and mounted on the DIN rail rack on the inside of the body behind the head area.
Movement-
Head- uses two standard sized servos
Wheels- uses 6 x 120rpm worm gear 12v motors
Credits- The DIN files are from another contributor " imstrng " on thingiverse, I included them in this post in case theirs is ever removed as they are incorporated into this project.https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2610621