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.
J5 technical booklet that we have.