Hello again Friends!

We hope that you have all had a great Holiday season, and are looking forward to the beginning of a new decade!

Ok in 2009, we have had many things holding us back in website updates and design and production of J5, please bear with us, we always continue with the project despite the lack of public updates.

Since July, we have been busy with many things J5 as well as Friends, Family & holidays. Since the last update, we have had yet another Team Member join us. Please welcome Tyler Hauth.

Tyler has been helping us out for a few months now, proving his skills in manufacture and his devotion to the project and to the Team. His recent work for us includes a machined aluminium mould for casting Carbon Fiber to make Lip-Light Covers for J5. He has also CNC machined many other parts including the Neck rod blocks, Shoulder pivot Lugs, and C-Channel Spring bushings. Please check out his Bio, and welcome him as we do, a trusted and valued member of the team.

Terry has also Hand Machined all the Neck Drive Assemblies for the team. On the J5 designs themselves, we have been reworking the Cradle base CAD`s as we have mentioned before. That has now been completely redesigned and the rest of the current design is now being gone through with a `fine toothed comb` by Terry, to eliminate any errors once and for all. Due to this, a few parts are needed to be re-manufactured.

We have made some more design progress with the head in recent months. Last update we showed off the prototype of the Lip-Light PCB, and soon we hope to show off the Lip-Light boxes, made from Tyler's mould. Simon has also been working on the head. The eyes to be exact. It was over 2 years ago when Martin cadded the original Head concept. Simon has taken it upon himself to play about with the cads, and make some prototypes which can be seen in the gallery. It was realized that the `Eyes` had no design on how to look around. So Simon has been working on preliminary ideas and concepts to get the eyes to have as much function as possible. That includes to look up, down, left, right, iris open & close, eyes Pop in & out, as well as light up red at the front and white throughout the `Eyetube` ( like in Short Circuit 2 ). I cannot say that the head designs are close to completion yet, but I can say that I am sure we will be making a working mockup during the year, possible a finished head, well we can hope!

The control of J5 is also finally being looked at, with linking servo controllers to Pc`s, and running programs. Only simple tests have been performed as of yet, but now we have made that possible, the door is now open to build on that basic foundation.

I hope that you appreciate this update, and there are a few new pictures in the gallery for you.

Thanks for staying with us and being patient.

The Team.